Otherworld
by HelloEli
Summary: [Silent Hill x Naruto crossover] Other than Itachi, Sasuke knew he was the last living Uchiha. But what if one had died in a specific order, with a specific mark? The numbers 13121...
1. 1

**_Title: _**Otherworld

**_By: _**Kokuryuuha018

**_Warnings: _**Yaoi, yuri, language, hinted 'rape' and OOCness.

**_Summary: _**Silent Hill x Naruto crossover Other than Itachi, Sasuke knew he was the last living Uchiha. But what if one had died in a specific order, with a specific mark? The numbers 15121…

Stori: Not much to talk about for this chapter, as I'm just starting things off, but I can give you the designated pairings:

Kiba/Neji,

Slight Kakashi/Sasuke,

Shikamaru/Sasuke,

Tenten/Sakura, and…

Naruto/Hinata

These pairings are not up for discussion, and I will not change them unless I feel it will benefit the plot line.

As for a timeline… I guess you could say this fic is slightly AU. It doesn't quite fit anywhere in the actual storyline, but still revolves and takes place in Konoha.

And finally, you DO NOT have to have played Silent Hill to understand this fic, as everything will be explained in detail as it progresses. But, if you are a fan of the Silent Hill series, you will find many references to scenes, characters, and different endings and outcomes of the different games. So keep your eyes open for character cameos, settings, as well as a certain pink rabbit!

()()()()()()()()(): Flashbacks

(O)(O)(O)(O) Scene Change (O)(O)(O)(O)

ooooooooooooooooooooooo: Meanwhile

_**Chapter one: **_

o(O)o(O)o

It's being invaded by the Otherworld. By a world of

someone's nightmarish delusions come to life.

_- Harry Mason_

_Silent Hill _

o(O)o(O)o

"What was that?"

Dark ebony eyes rose from the ground they had been so mercilessly studying, only to meet one of steel, "Hmm…?"

"What was it you said, Sasuke? You were too quiet, we couldn't hear…"

He had said something? Sasuke's eyes darted from Kakashi, to Naruto, to Sakura and back again. All but the blonde were staring at him expectantly, "…I… Didn't say anything…" He muttered, leaning back against the metal railing of the bridge.

Sakura smiled at him, seemingly satisfied. But Kakashi… The man just continued to stare, unwavering, his visible eye suddenly even more emotionless than normal.

His gaze was unnerving, and Sasuke swore the temperature had just plummeted to zero… He growled in annoyance as he had to force down the shudder that shot down his spine. How long had it been since someone had looked at him like that? Gods, it felt like forever… No one had questioned his word as strongly as the silver haired man was now for quite some time, and Sasuke, to his dismay, couldn't hold back a second shiver.

"What's wrong, Kakashi-sensei?" A clearly female voice questioned, as Sasuke sighed silently. He usually couldn't stand it when Sakura butted in with aimless questions, but she couldn't have picked a better time to do so… He felt as though he could kiss her, but shook it off as he envisioned the outcome of such an action.

"Ah… No, everything is fine, right Sasuke?" The jounin smiled behind his mask, inevitably reassuring the girl, but Sasuke could still trace a hint of unrest radiating from the man.

And that bothered him to no end.

What if he knew? What if he knew about the dreams he'd been having lately? He had thought he'd hidden it well enough. Yes, he had been coming to their meetings later, but he always got there before Kakashi and Naruto.

No, he didn't know… he couldn't. Sasuke had been extra cautious. And even if he did, why would Sasuke be worried? He shouldn't be. It was just a dream. A really dark, morose, messed up dream that involved a certain silver haired jounin… But that's normal, right?

Yeah, totally normal….

Sasuke's eyes wandered down the road, trying to find anything that would take his mind off the uncomfortable subject it had drifted into.

It wasn't that Sasuke hadn't ever had a nightmare before. It was just that he had never had one that left him as disoriented and light headed as this one did. He couldn't stand up on his own for an hour afterwards and even _now_ he still had that splitting headache.

The air in his dream had been so undeniably heavy… And his apartment had been… Gods, his apartment was in ruins! It was in such bad shape he could hardly tell it was his own. All rusted and bloody, he couldn't even make out the doors from the rest of the wall. And worst of all, _IT_ had been there…

Sasuke almost shuddered at the thought of that thing… _IT_ had pulled itself from the wall, out of that swirling, bloody abyss. And the moment _IT_ emerged, the room had been overrun with the smell of sulfur.

That in itself was odd. Can you even smell _anything_ in your dreams?

Sasuke snapped himself out of his thoughts, realizing that his team was now Kakashi-less, and he was being stared at expectantly by Sakura and glared at by Naruto.

He sighed softly, his cold demeanor still intact, and after returning the blonds glare with one of his own, began to walk in the opposite direction. He ignored Sakura's consistent requests to get something to eat, a skill he had developed with _a lot _of practice. He was focused on getting home and doing the one thing he knew would get his mind off things; training.

His pace quickened to a jog when he was out of the pairs sight. He needed something to take his mind off that dream, and what better way to rid oneself of unwanted thoughts than to work yourself to such exhaustion that your brain doesn't want to function anymore?

The soles of Sasuke's sandals slapped the ground as he sped up and began to run, throwing all discretion to the wind as he did so.

But, with his mind set on his plans for the long, excruciating night ahead, he didn't see the slender figure that stumbled out of the alleyway, directly onto his path.

Hitting the pavement with a slight thump, he cursed himself for not paying attention. Now he'd either have to put up with someone's complaints or concern, something he didn't have time for at the moment.

Looking up quickly, Sasuke found himself staring up at ivory eyes shadowed by dark bangs.

He thought it was Hyuuga Neji, but… it couldn't be. That guy wouldn't be caught dead looking like this one did, especially in public. The markings across his forehead were visible due to the lack of his forehead protector, his hair falling in front of his face. His eyes were bloodshot as if he'd been crying, or not slept for a good couple of days. The latter was probably the most plausible explanation anyway, because Neji didn't cry, _ever_ (1) Other than the fact that his clothes were rumpled and dirty looking, everything else was fine… well, except for his right thigh…

'Neji's' shorts had been rolled up as high as they would go, almost touching the hip. The bandages on his right thigh were charred in some spots. The design carved into his upper thigh formed the number 161, which was then scratched out and covered with a circular insignia… Looking beyond the burned bandages, Sasuke could see the skin underneath beginning to bubble and blister.

"You're burnt…" The raven haired boy mentally slapped himself, _"What the hell was that? Stating the obvious my ass, that was just plain stupid…"_

The older boy's lips curved into a small smirk, "It's… still not… hurting…" He managed to choke out. Purplish bruises were scattered about his neck, and there were dark red marks under his jaw that were almost luminescent against his pale skin, "Something's wrong…"

Sasuke gasped as Neji pitched forward, landing awkwardly on top of him, "What the hell happened to you…?"

Debating whether or not to leave the unconscious teen in the middle of the street, his eyes wandered back to the mark branded into the others upper thigh. He would leave him there, but he was captivated by those numbers and that design.

He'd seen it before, in his dream…

_(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)_

"_God… My head is pounding…" _

Neji's eyes felt as if they were glued shut. His body was numb… The only thing he could feel was a dull throbbing emanating from his thigh.

A soft groan passed his lips, as he attempted to shift his head to the side and away from what felt like a hand ghosting across his face.

"_Wait… a hand?"_

His own hand shot up, grabbing the one that had once again passed over his forehead, only to cry out as a sharp, stabbing pain resulted from the movement. His wrist, as he could now feel, was badly sprained and his arm was in no better shape.

"For Christ sake kid, keep still!" Great, just… lovely. He was now at the severely limited mercy of the fifth Hokage… And better yet, he still couldn't open his eyes, move his right leg, or even remember where he was.

"Ugh… Huh?" The Hyuuga could barely contain a sigh at his less than coherent response, _"Yes Neji, very productive, very not pathetic…'_" The boy continued to mentally chastise himself, seeing as he wasn't in the best of mindsets at the moment.

"Good, that's good" Even with his eyes closed he could feel Tsunade's smirk, "Now try to move you're lips and you'll do fine."

If he could manage to get any air passed his severely bruised throat, he would have told her to shut up. Instead it just came out as a strangled groan. Just twenty seconds of being conscious in a room with the woman and he was already holding back the urge to either kill himself or try to kill her, the latter he knew would end up a lot like the first.

Testing his right arm and seeing that all was more or less well, Neji slowly raised his hand to his eyes, rubbing them in an effort to pry them open.

Eventually succeeding, although his vision was blurry, he could still make out that he was definitely not where he wanted to be.

By scanning his surroundings, the ivory eyed boy could gather that he was in a post-op recovery room. The walls were painted a dull beige so as to emit a calming atmosphere for those coming out of anesthetic induced unconsciousness. Tsunade was sitting at his side, flipping through a pile of reference books stacked on the bedside table. The one thing that really caught his attention however was that Gai, his normally happy go lucky teacher, was standing behind her, looking rather somber.

"Neji," The man spoke slowly, trying to force something down. His voice was close to cracking, another definite change in his character, "Do… you know where you are?"

That wasn't the question he was going to ask. The boy knew he was going to ask something else. Something was very wrong. Gai had never been quite like this, not even when he acted his age and rank and was serious. It was frustrating, it was nerve racking, and it was fucking scary (although he'd never admit it out loud, he _was _Neji Hyuuga after all).

"Neji, answer him." Tsunade demanded. She was staring at him as intently as his teacher, her eyes set like stone, "Do you know where you are…?"

He shook his head, still trying to figure out what was wrong. He had absolutely no clue where he was, and the fact that the only others in the room were both frighteningly unemotional didn't help his mood.

He tried to sit up, but he could feel a dull throbbing beginning to form at the base of his spine, causing him to cease all attempts at movement. He had never felt this helpless before. He hated it.

The woman sighed, running a hand through her bangs, "Okay… Although I should have known that you wouldn't have ever been here, it would have made things a lot easier." Light brown eyes shifted to Gai, glancing towards the door quickly, before returning to her gaze to the boy on the bed.

As Gai walked to the door, Neji met Tsunade's eyes, "Just… tell me… where…" His throat was raw, clenching with each syllable. It hurt to breathe, much less speak.

The sound of a chain being lifted and a very final click signalled that the door had been locked, blocking any entry, or escape. Gai appeared behind Tsunade again, folding his arms over his chest.

"Fine," The woman reached out a hand, tracing her fingers along the Hyuuga's in an effort to reassure him, but only serving to make him even more uncomfortable, "You're in the sexual assault ward of the Konoha hospital. We have been given reason to believe that you were raped last night…"

Neji blinked once. Then twice. Suddenly the pain from his thigh, his wrist, and his lower back seemed to fade away, all being replaced by a dull throbbing in the back of his head. _"I… I was…? I can't remember a thing… How did I…?"_

"You were brought in by Sasuke Uchiha. He said that he'd found you on the street, and that you seemed delirious before you collapsed… It's a miracle that boy brought you in at all." Tsunade sighed, bringing her hand up to massage her temples.

"..H-how…?" The voice sounded so foreign, so much so that the owner could barely recognize it. Neji's head was starting to pound harder, almost to the point he could barely keep his eyes open.

"We don't know… We can't even confirm where this took place. That's one of the reasons why we need you. To fill us in on all that really happened." Slender fingers curled around the spine of a heavy looking book, bringing it to rest in the woman's lap.

Gai turned his attention to the blonde head in front of him, "One of the reasons…? There's another?" She hadn't mentioned anything other than the rape when she'd sent for him the night before.

That in itself had scared the shit out of him. He had just dropped Lee off for the night when a messenger had stopped him and said that the Hokage requested to see him. He was about to ask why when a piece of paper was shoved in his face, stating that something had happened to Neji Hyuuga blah, blah, blah, and that his presence was mandatory and required immediately.

Naturally, he had left as soon as he'd been called, but there was absolutely no way he could have prepared for what was about to happen. How could he? There was no way he could even think about such an atrocity befalling one of his students.

"Yes, there is another…" The Hokage flipped through the pages of the heavy suede covered book, "That marking on his thigh… It seems to be occult… If that is the case, than we may have some sort of mass suicide or new religious group on our hands, and those are never pretty. That and the fact that our rapist is supposedly part of this 'cult', and we are assuming that he left that mark as a sign of it, suggesting that this was part of a cult ritual or some other crap like that…" Brown eyes shifted from the book in her lap resting on the boy in front of her, "And that is not enough to excuse a crime such as this." She raised an eyebrow at the lack of response from the Hyuuga.

"Neji?" Tsunade's expression fell into one of concern as the boy still did not answer her, his eyes wide and now glued to the blistered insignia on his thigh.

Neji flinched slightly and moved away as Tsunade attempted to place a comforting hand on his shoulder, _"I was… They really… Oh god, I remember…" _He held fistfuls of the white sheets in a death grip, his eyes wide as he began to hyperventilate.

"Whoa, whoa! Calm down, just… breathe." Tsunade's fingers curled around Neji's shoulder as Gai— who had moved to the boys side at the first sign of trouble —attempted to calm him down.

"What's wrong with him?" Gai rubbed his hand in small circles against Neji's back, watching him intently as Tsunade tried to get him to breathe into a paper bag.

"He's freaking out. I take it you didn't remember anything until I told you, so…" Tsunade frowned, deciding to shut up for the moment. It didn't last very long, "You okay now?"

"Okay?" Neji snapped, "Do I look okay to you?" He was not going to cry. He was already stripped of most of his pride, he wasn't going to just give up the rest. He couldn't believe this was happening to him…

"Hey!" Tsunade snapped back, losing her cool for a second. She didn't care just _what_ the kid had been through, he needed to calm down for the moment. There were a lot of questions that needed to be answered.

Neji instantly shut up, regaining momentary control over himself.

"Thank you. Now I need you to answer a few questions Neji. Can you do that?" Tsunade couldn't stand having to stay all cool and collected in front of the kid, but she wanted her answers. And if she pissed him off she wouldn't be getting a word out of him.

Neji nodded slowly, careful not to nock his neck out of whack again.

Tsunade smiled slightly and, taking a seat next to the bed once again, began her interrogation, "First of all, why the hell were you wandering about in the dark, especially when you had absolutely no missions?"

Taking a deep breath (as deep a breath as he could get past his bruised throat), he sat back, letting his recollections transfer into words and flow from his lips.

_(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)_

"You want me to what?" Kiba asked for the umpteenth time, staring raptly at Shizune who had the _honour_ of presenting missions in Tsunade's absence.

"I _said, _you are to track Neji Hyuuga for this woman here," Shizune huffed as she handed him the photo, "You should be happy. It's just a simple tracking mission, nothing big. Just write a report about his day to day activities, and follow any other instructions from the client."

"Wait."

"What is it now?"

Kiba looked up from the mission outline, his brow furrowed, "It says here that Neji was _kidnapped _from this woman… _how? _She's clearly not a Hyuuga, and Neji clearly _is_. And besides," Kiba looked back down at the picture in his hand, "She really doesn't look that trustworthy."

Shizune sighed, "I know it looks suspicious, but the Gondaime approved of it. Even if it isn't a solid mission, it has to be of some importance if the Hokage thinks it's worthwhile."

Kiba shook his head as he turned to leave, making sure he was out of the room and hearing distance before looking back down at the report, "I don't get it… What's so special about him anyway?"

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Gai was sitting beside the window, trying to block out the trying conversation that was being passed between Tsunade and his student. His _pupil_… Neji. He felt as if he was going to be sick. The words coming out of that boys mouth, recalling things that no one should ever even think about… he couldn't listen anymore.

Tsunade on the other hand was listening attentively, not missing a word. She was certain that this instance was related to that woman who had requested a 'detective' to track Neji. Claudia Wolf, and whatever it was she was planning, just made the biggest mistake of all…

"So let me get this straight…" Tsunade said, "They caught as you were walking back to the Hyuuga compound?"

"No." Neji snapped back exasperatedly. He just wanted to sleep, "I was coming back from training, and I was going to get something to eat. I was starving, so I just… followed my nose?"

Tsunade raised an eyebrow, "They were cooking…?"

"No!" Neji buried his face in his hands in frustration. For the Hokage, she could be remarkably slow, "I was heading to the _nearest restaurant, _and that just happened to be right on the other end of the alleyway."

"And they jumped you in the alley?"

"Yes."

"And you put up some sort of a fight I hope."

"_Yes_."

"But they were too tough?"

"I told you," Neji huffed, "The one had a gun, the other some sort of fucked up machete, and the other…"

"That was the weird masked one right?" Tsunade asked, her rapt gaze never leaving his face.

Neji shivered slightly, nodding, "He was… odd. He was wearing a mask, but it didn't _look _like a mask. It looked like it was attached to his face, like it was his face, but that was the thing."

"What?"

Neji looked up, still shivering slightly. He eyes were desolate, but his face wasn't. It was as if he was begging her to believe something he could never believe himself, "There was _no face_. Nothing. Like flesh that was just wrapped around a head. No eyes, ears, a nose, a _mouth_. _Nothing_."

"That's impossible." Gai stated from across the room, "How could he see? How could he breathe?"

Neji frowned at him, "I'm sorry, I forgot to ask him while his cronies fucking _raped me._"

"Neji." Tsunade stood up from her chair, walking towards the door and unlocking it, "We'll leave you alone now. To calm down a bit. You've had a hard day."

Gai joined her at the other side of the room after patting Neji on the back a couple times. He needed to get out of there. He had to get out _now_.

"But Neji," Tsunade added as she stepped out the door, "If you remember anything else, give me a shout right away."

Neji nodded and the door swung closed. But he still couldn't shake that face out of his head. He knew he was missing something, something really important, something… that he'd forgotten a long, long time ago.

How the hell was he supposed to remember that?

TBC.

**Stori: **Took me a while to get this out… does anyone recognise that last line? Lol, think SH people….


	2. 2

**Chapter 2**

Neji's footsteps echoed loudly as he stepped through the metal gate. He was especially careful not to lose his footing on the dilapidated flooring, seeing as huge gaping holes were scattered about the amusement park.

Yes, an amusement park. He was in Lakeside Amusement Park (not that he knew where it was or why he was where he was), and he couldn't be more terrified. He had just woken up in front of the park with no memory _at all_, and a small purple switchblade that couldn't cut through butter. Neji was very, _very_ confused.

He stepped forward slowly, trying to take in the corrupt state of the park. The park's mascot was slumped over on the bench, blood drying around the smiling mouth of the pink bunny rabbit. Dead… _things_ hung in cages, their skin crawling with a kind of living rust. And for god sakes, there were holes cut in the damn floor! How somebody cut a perfect, unending square into the earth was totally and completely beyond him.

"Just don't think about it," Neji whispered, holding the useless blade closer to his chest, "If I don't think about it, I'll be okay…" He took another step forward, steering himself towards the large wooden door to his left, trying his best to ignore the crying coming from the men's room on his right.

He reached out towards the door and gave it a push, surprised when the heavy looking door swung open easily, giving off a loud squeak as it rolled on its hinges.

Stepping through the door, Neji seemed to have left all of his shinobi training at the gate. He gave no thought to the fact that he was stepping into a large, unlit hallway with no other exit in plain sight. He thought nothing of the fact that the squeal the door gave off could have attracted the attention of the looming thing in the corner. He also didn't think that his only means of effective defense was a dull little knife. Yup, his good head was definitely not with him today.

A sudden movement caught his eye and he turned swiftly to his right, his shoulder knocking into the door and slamming it shut behind him. He backed up slowly, his hands patting furiously at his pockets for anything that he could use as a light.

The thing was advancing faster now, its limbs swinging side to side as it walked (better yet, _stumbled_) towards him. Finally, he came upon a matchbook in his coat pocket and he hastily ripped the package.

"C'mon for god sake, c'mon! Light you fucking thing, light!" Neji nearly screamed as he tried furiously to strike the match. His palms were sweaty, his hands were shaking and he couldn't remember the last time he felt so damn terrified, but he on the seventh strike, he got it. The match burst into flame, illuminating only the few feet in front of him, but that was more than enough.

Neji froze as he found himself face to… kind of face with… something. It was more like a spinning circle of flesh that was sewn in the middle. Still, it wasn't anything like what he had expected, and Neji couldn't really seem to move at all. Well, until the thing stood up. That got him moving.

Neji turned on his heel, dropped the match, and ran. He had no idea where the hell he was going, but he ran. His feet pounded the pavement; the echo of his steps mixed with the thumping of the creatures just dared him to look back.

He skidded to a halt and backtracked suddenly as a nearly invisible door caught his eye. Neji grasped the metal handle and tugged, but it was no good. The hinges were rusted shut.

Neji's eyes widened considerably, his hands shaking as he pulled at the handle, "Open, please, for the love of god!" He trembled as he heard the creature approaching, and he stepped back. All at once, he unleashed a barrage of… anything at the poor door. Flying fists, feet, elbows anything painful and powerful.

The door eventually gave way, falling to the floor with a loud crash. Neji ran through the second it was down, going further still and dashing up the stairs at the end of the park. He didn't stop; he _couldn't _stop until he got to the upper landing and slammed the wire gate.

After making sure the thing wasn't climbing after him, Neji sunk to his knees, "What in the hell is going on?" He ran a hand through his hair, tucking his sweat soaked bangs behind his ears. He was terrified, and that scared him even more than he already was. He hadn't been this scared since…

Neji stood up suddenly, "Don't think… don't think about it and it'll all go away." He whispered, taking in his surroundings. There was a roller coaster track right in front of him. He looked over the railing, and even though he didn't see the thing down there… he didn't want to take any chances. So, roller coaster it was.

Neji tapped his foot on the rail before jumping lightly onto it. He looked ahead, and after praying there were no loops anytime soon, he started to walk. He was careful no to get his feet caught under the rails or the wooden boards as he walked along the track, his hands shaking wildly at his sides.

About halfway down the track and two camel humps later, Neji had begun to calm down. His strides were faster, his hands less sweaty and shaky, and unfortunately, he was less on guard. Maybe if he had still been on edge, he'd have felt the shaking of the tracks, or seen the lights coming towards him. Or maybe he would have heard the sound of metal on metal as the cart sped towards him.

Neji, totally unaware of his current situation, thought the track was getting shaking a little, but had chalked it up to his nerves. It wasn't until the lights from the cart hit his face that he knew he was in deep shit.

He looked up suddenly, drew in a breath and prepared to jump, but he was too late. The cart collided with his midsection as he lost control of his feet and fell to the ground…

(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)

"Shit!"

Neji shot up from his position of being slumped on the table, his eyes wide and his heart racing. He looked around rapidly, trying to gather his bearings.

He was in a coffee shop in Konoha's only shopping mall.

Neji sat back, relaxing just a little, "Oh god… what a fucked up dream." He sighed. It was probably due to recent events. Too much had been going on lately.

It had been two weeks since Neji had been released from the hospital after the… incident. He didn't talk about it, and everyone (aside from Gai of course) seemed to respect that. The other wounds had healed, but the insignia on his leg still remained. Even Tsunade had to admit it wasn't natural for such a slight burn to take so long to heal. He just changed the bandage often and tried not to think about it.

On the other hand, Sasuke hadn't showed up _anywhere_ for the past few days. The only reason he found out was because of Gai and Lee. One was going on about his eternal rival, the other his darling Sakura and how the disappearance was affecting them. Sakura was a wreak but Kakashi… for some reason, he was much, much worse.

And last but not least, Kiba had been stalking him. Yes, as odd as it may sound, Kiba had been following him around since he had left the hospital. Neji had never confronted him on it, as Kiba was always in full ninja garb when he was tracking him. It was obviously a mission, but in all honesty, who would want to track _him_? He hadn't done anything the past few weeks except train profusely and… train profusely. It seemed to keep his mind occupied. So why in the hell would he be worth tracking?

Speaking of the Inuzuka, Kiba was staring at him as if he had grown an extra head. Well, Neji had just fallen asleep in a public place, woken up screaming and was now sitting in his little corner booth with a very, _very_ stupid look on his face. All of which were not really his usual behavior.

Sighing again, Neji stood up, tucking his mother's necklace into his shirt. It must have fallen out when he had fallen asleep and he really didn't want to loose it. It was really very special to him.

His mother had given him that necklace for his birthday. When he asked what it was, she smiled and simply said, "Just a lucky charm", but Neji knew it was much more than that.

He walked out of the restaurant, not surprised when Kiba stood up and followed. He never bothered to stay hidden (he seemed to realize how futile it was after the first few days), but he had the sense to stay a respectable distance from his target.

Today however, Kiba seemed a little more adventurous. He actually walked up to Neji and tapped him on the shoulder.

Neji sighed and turned, "Can I help you? I'm busy."

"I know, you're out of food and you needed to go grocery shopping, trust me I _know_." Kiba replied, scratching the back of his neck, "But this is important, and I need to talk to you."

Neji scowled at him, hoping that would be enough to scare him away. It didn't, just made him laugh a little. Going onto plan B, Neji snapped back, "What, you're going to tell me why you've been following me the past two weeks? Well sorry, but I'm not interested."

Kiba growled under his breath, crossing his arms across his chest. This was not how he planned his Saturday, "No, just listen to me. There's somebody who wants to talk to you, said something about your birth. Just give me an hour so I can finish this mission, get paid and enjoy my weekend."

"No, sorry, but I've got to go." Satisfied for now, Neji turned on his heel and started walking in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, Kiba was feeling insanely stubborn and continued to follow him.

Deciding to change his plan of action, Neji turned towards the bathrooms instead. Sure Kiba could get into the men's room no problem, but if Neji was lucky, there'd be some middle aged chick in there to shoo Kiba out of the women's washroom once he fed her the good old stalker excuse.

"Neji," Kiba shouted after him, "Where the hell are you going?" Figures he'd catch him on a bad day. Kiba stopped just in time to avoid getting hit by the swinging door to the women's washroom. He could just go in after him, but he'd risk getting screamed at. He'd already had enough of that from Tsunade at the lack of progress in his mission. Apparently the Hokage didn't seem to realize that it was a rather difficult task to track a fellow ninja.

Sighing to himself, Kiba leaned up against the wall, settling down for a bit. He could wait. After all, Neji had to come out eventually…

TBC

**A/N:** A little bit of a short chapter this time, but at least this got it moving! ;P


	3. 3

A/N: In the last two chapters I've focused heavily on Neji's situation. Which is quite odd, seeing as the summary has nothing to do with him and I was planning on making Sasuke's situation the main premises of this fic. Unfortunately (or fortunately, whoever you like best I guess), Neji has stolen the spotlight away from Sasuke, but only for now. I will not drop Sasuke's part completely, nor will I get rid of Sakura's and Tenten's, or Naruto's and Hinata's part. It's all part of the main storyline, and if I get rid of that, then I won't have a fic now will I:P I just wanted to get that out in the open for anyone who was curious lol. Sorry for the slow update on this chapter… Onto the fic!

o(O)o(O)o

Even as a child I saw the coming of this day.

I knew that I would be a witness to it, Judgment Day!

-Claudia Wolf  
_Silent Hill 3_

o(O)o(O)o

**Chapter 3**

Sasuke was exhausted.

He was sitting on the couch in front of his TV, remote in hand and futilely pressing the power button. He knew it wasn't the batteries, or the power, it just wouldn't turn on. Like his clock that stopped, his phone that didn't work, his windows that wouldn't break, and his door that wouldn't open.

After about five days of this, Sasuke had just about stopped trying.

It all started that morning five days past. He'd woken up from his nightmare again, but this time, he hadn't even made it to the kitchen before he was woken up by a loud noise, like the sound of metal on metal.

At first he'd thought something had just fallen down, or that maybe he'd left a window open, but all that vanished when he walked out of the hallway.

The apartment was small enough to see end to end, and only had a single bedroom. He was fortunate enough to have his own laundry, and he was rather high up so as to avoid having to invest in heavier curtains (although he sometimes wished his neighbors would. He could sit there all day and still not know what the fuck they were doing). He couldn't hope for a better apartment with his salary, but lately, he'd started wishing they'd stuck him in another room.

When Sasuke had walked into his living room that Tuesday morning, he could have killed someone.

Pulled tight across his door were thick chains, overlapping and intersecting, some even joined together with a padlock or two for good measure. The reinforced metal was impossible for him to break, and no matter how hard he tried he couldn't seem to break the door down.

To make matters worse, someone named Walter had written across his door in red, "Don't go out!"… A statement written on the inside of his apartment door along with the chains that couldn't have possibly been attached from the outside, seeing as he could, well, _see_ them. This meant, as Sasuke knew for a fact that there was no one inside the apartment, he was housing some invisible little tenant named Walter that made his TV go weird and had really bad penmanship. Possibly a foreign little Walter then, as he spelled out the sentence on his door like a two year old. Or at least that was Sasuke's theory.

"It's not like it matters… no one can hear me, no one can see me. Sure people will come looking for me but they'll never get in." Sasuke flopped back on his couch throwing the clicker across the room. He was stuck. He'd soon run out of food, and then he'd starve to death. If only "Walter" had given him some sort of warning, then maybe he could have gone and stocked up on groceries or something.

Sighing softly, Sasuke began to dose off on the couch, wondering if he'd wake up in his bed again. That was the other neat thing about his new and improved apartment. No matter where he fell asleep, be it the couch, the shower, the table, he'd always have that retarded dream, and he'd _always_ wake up in his bed. It was a pretty nifty if he was too tired to take the ten foot trip to his bedroom.

Suddenly, Sasuke was snapped out of his nap by a loud noise coming from the direction his bathroom. He jumped up off the couch and took off down the hall, ecstatic that _something_ was finally happening. Now he'd have something to do for a while!

He threw open the door and was floored by what he saw.

Where his mirror and toilet roll once were there was now a huge, gaping hole.

"What in the fuck…?" Sasuke muttered as he stooped in for a closer inspection. The hole was long, longer than it should be and it didn't go through to the apartment next to him, oh no, it went further than that. He could see the end though, the little spot of light at the end of the long dark tunnel and, even though the laughing coming from it was really weirding him out, he decided it was better than staying where he was.

He grabbed a broken pipe from beside the toilet "just in case", and started climbed into the tunnel in the wall.

All of his training was telling him to stop, to go back, that it wasn't safe but hell… the man who taught him all that hadn't been holed up in his apartment with literally _nothing_ to do for the past week.

That was enough to get his ass going.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"I can't go out there…" Neji muttered as he stared at the lipstick marks on the mirror in front of him. Some chick had an idea to draw some cultish symbol on the mirror in hooker red lipstick, and since he'd walked in he hadn't been able to take his eyes off of it.

He'd gotten a couple weird looks, but no one had bothered him yet, except for the young Goth girl who'd stopped beside him to reapply her lipstick and had asked him what he was in for. Apparently a man in the women's washroom was a commonplace around there…

He couldn't leave the washroom through the door. He'd checked three times and he still hadn't moved. If Neji could say anything about him it was that he was pretty damn persistent.

Neji tore his eye's away from the insignia on the mirror (it was starting to give him a headache), and caught a glimpse of a window on his right.

He grasped the bottom of the window pane, hoping it wasn't locked, and pulled. With his luck he expected it to set off an alarm, but to his surprise, it opened easily, "Just like at the amusement park…" He thought, but he quickly pushed that to the back of his mind. He didn't need that right then and there, especially sine he'd just caught a lucky break.

Hopping out the window easily, Neji found himself in a run down, cobble stone alleyway with the exit to his left completely blocked off, "I guess I'm going right then." He muttered to no one in particular, taking off down the alley. He hadn't had much luck with alleys before, (especially two weeks ago) but it was broad daylight and there were bound to be people there somewhere, maybe unloading trucks or something. If he screamed, he was sure to be heard. Besides, he'd gotten out of his rut. He didn't seem to be having such bad dreams anymore (at night anyway), and people were actually starting to leave him alone. Except for that day, things were going fine.

That is, until he reached the end of the alleyway.

"Son of a bitch," Neji cursed, "Who parked this here?"

Parked in the exit to the alley was a huge rig. Both sides were flat against the fence/wall, and there didn't seem to be any way of moving it.

Leaning up against the brick wall, Neji caught sight of a door right beside him marked "Employee's ONLY!"

He shrugged and figured that it wasn't the first time he trespassed, and besides, he wasn't supposed to be in the alley either, "Out of the frying pan and into the fire…" He said, sighing as he opened the surprisingly unlocked door (he was finding it hard to believe that the owner would be so stupid as to install the locks if he wasn't going to use them), "Oh well."

Neji tried to get into a more public place of the mall as quickly as he could. He couldn't quite explain it, but after his run in with Kiba, the thought of being alone terrified him. He was never scared of being alone before, no abandonment issues, nothing. He tried to rationalize it but that just made it worse. All he could do was try his hardest to get the hell out of there, and fast.

So when Neji walked through a door into a main branch of the mall, he couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, although that relief was quickly cut short.

What was just a few minutes ago bustling and _occupied_, was now trashed and deserted.

The fire gates were lowered over every door, potted plants scattered across the floor, and the mall sound system was emitting this strange (and annoying) static. Every store was locked and empty, and it did nothing to calm Neji's nerves.

To make matters worse, the wreckage seemed to form a trail to one of the covered store entrances, the only entrance in which the fire gates over that door were ripped in two. Whoever had gotten into the… "Delilah's Dress Boutique" must have been determined.

Neji didn't know if who had gotten the gate open was still inside the store or not, but if they were, then maybe they could explain to him what was going on. Besides, he had no other choice. All the other exits were either blocked off or boarded up.

Watching his footing amongst the smashed displays and pottery, Neji ducked under the half opened door and stepped inside the store.

The first thing that caught his eye was the gun lying on the ground before him. Being a shinobi, he never had any use for guns, but he at least knew one when he saw one, and he knew that you wouldn't usually find one sitting on the floor of a dress boutique, deserted or not. The fact that he had only ever seen a real gun was during the incident, and that the gun lying on the floor looked identical to the one that had been shoved into his mouth that night had him completely engrossed. He didn't even hear the shuffling coming from the corner until after he picked up the weapon.

Neji was startled out of his trance when he heard a wet thump from the opposite corner of the store, almost dropping the gun that he'd just picked up, "Please don't be him… please, please, please…" Neji pleaded under his breath, his hands shaking at the thought that his… attacker could very well be standing in the corner. Taking one last deep breath, Neji slowly turned his head towards the source of the sound.

His heart stopped and he didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Standing in the corner, chewing the face off of some poor, dead sales associate wasn't the No Face man or one of his lackeys, but the creature from his dream.

Neji took a step backward as the creature began to stand up, its thin body leaning entirely on the support of its massive arms, dragging its small deformed legs behind as it made its way towards him.

Neji raised the gun to eye level, trying to remember how the creep who attacked him shot it, "Okay, he pulled the little thingy at the back… He aimed…" Neji took another step backwards, holding the gun as steady as he could, "Stay back, you fuck!" Another step, "Get the hell away from me!"

The first shot echoed through the small space, making his ears ring.

The bullet hit, but the thing kept approaching. Neji fired a second time, a third time, a fourth, fifth, sixth… and then all he was left with was a sharp clicking as he desperately pulled the trigger. Nothing…

"No…" Neji breathed, his heart hammering in his chest. Why him? After all the shit he'd been through lately, why him!? He leaned back against the racks of clothes and closed his eyes.

When nothing happened, he decided that it might be a good time to open them.

"Apparently it takes a while for these things to die." Neji mumbled as he kicked the thing on the ground. It seemed dead enough, but he decided to kick it again for good measure. Sighing, Neji shoved the gun in his jacket pocket. It was empty, but if he ran into one of those things again, he could at least whip it at them.

It was kind of scary how accustomed he was getting to this shit.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"Shit, shit, shit!!!"

Kiba slammed the door to the men's restroom almost as fast as he'd opened it. Barring the door with whatever he could find, he began to search the room frantically for a way out.

He had just been standing there, waiting for Neji to drag his ass out of the ladies room, when he'd heard a crash down the hall. He'd though that maybe someone had fallen or hurt themselves or something and, being the good (and deathly bored) Samaritan that he was, he decided to go investigate.

He'd walked all the way down to the subway station in hopes of finding something to bide his time while he waited for his mission target to finish powdering his nose. What he found however, was not a little old lady trapped under her walker but a big, oozing hole… kinda stuck in the middle of an advertisement for a new chewing gum. That was nothing. He'd seen weirder shit than that before, usually on missions harder than this one but at least he wouldn't be as bored anymore.

Curious as always he'd walked closer, only to be grabbed by a sticky, grimy hand that shot out of the hole in the poster. Luckily, since he was on a mission, he was required to have some means of defense, and was able to get away, but that didn't stop the now handless thing from walking out of the hole in the wall.

Once he saw the strings holding the floating, human like thing back snap, he'd taken off like a shot.

Now, he was stuck in the men's room of the Konoha Heights shopping mall, with a dripping, bloody mass of human like… something waiting outside the door.

Kiba sighed as he sat down beside the sinks, resting his head on his knees. That thing had given him a huge migraine for some reason, "Thanks a lot Neji," Kiba said under his breath, "You ruined my Saturday."

TBC.

A/N: FINALLY! I wrote and rewrote this thing over and over, so I apologize if it's a piece of crap.


	4. 4

**A/N:** Gore and smut ahead!

**Chapter 4**

Kiba was awoken by the sound of thundering footsteps and a familiar voice.

He hadn't even realized he'd fallen asleep, and silently berated himself for it. He was a shinobi for god sakes, he should know better than to fall asleep on the job, especially in the middle of a critical situation. It was that thing that did it, he was sure of it. The minute the goopy strings holding it back snapped, he was hit with the worst migraine of his life. It took a lot of crouching in a dark corner and aspirin to make it go away, and when it did he was hit with a wave of lethargy. He couldn't help but fall asleep.

And he couldn't help but wake up, snapped back into action as he heard the commotion outside. He knew that the glass cracking and the long, wet thumping was just one of the monsters he'd seen patrolling the halls, but he also heard the squeaking of rubber soles on tile. He also heard someone yelling frantically, and he recognized the voice instantly.

"Neji!?" Kiba yelled through the door, not sure if he should open it. With all the weird shit going on, it could very well be one of those drippy things impersonating Neji. Or it could just be Neji, but he decided he'd rather not risk it.

"Kiba!? Kiba, for the love of god, open the fucking door!"

"Neji, what the hell's going on out there!?"

"Open the door! Please, god, it's HIM! I knew he was here, I knew it it's his fault! It's his fault! Open the door!!!"

When he heard Neji let out a choked sob, he finally opened the door. He didn't know what to think. He'd never, in all of his young life seen Neji cry. He'd never even heard about Neji crying, hell, he didn't think he could!

The second the door was unlocked, it was pulled from his grasp and thrown open wide, only to be slammed shut again once Neji was inside. Kiba took the time to evaluate his mission targets condition.

All in all, he looked horrible.

Neji's usually immaculate hair was in complete disarray, wild and plastered to his neck and forehead with sweat. Shallow scratches covered his left arm and thigh, and some thing on his right thigh seemed to be bleeding through his shorts. Neji's headband was long gone, and so were his nerves of steel apparently. The boy's knees had given out, and he had slid to the floor, breathing hard and sobbing violently. He looked absolutely terrified.

"Neji, calm down, just breathe…" Kiba said gently, trying to inch his way closer to the Hyuuga without him freaking.

"I… I… oh god, please, lock the door." Neji closed his eyes, leaning his head against the wall. His breathing began to slow as he furiously wiped at his cheeks. Turning his face away from the other nin, he undid his ponytail (which was already hanging on by a few strands) and pulled his hair back into a loose bun. When he was sure he looked half decent again, he turned back towards Kiba, eyeing him strangely. The other boy hadn't moved since he got in there.

Kiba flopped down onto the floor beside him, leaning against the wall behind them as well. He'd never seen Neji do anything with his hair other than his usually ponytail. The boy usually made sure he looked perfect before he ever set foot in public. Whatever the hell happened, it must have spooked him good. And if it could terrify Neji Hyuuga, he sure as hell never wanted to run into it.

All the same though, he was curious. He knew he shouldn't ask, that he should just let bygones be bygones, but his curiosity got the better of him, "So, Neji... who were you running from? It didn't sound like the little creepy things running around here."

Instead of hitting him or telling him to fuck off, much to Kiba's surprise, Neji turned to face him, eye's wide with shock, "You can see them?" He whispered, as if he was afraid the big beasties outside would hear, "The things? What about this room? Do you see the blood? The rust?"

"Blood and rust?" Taking a minute to look around, Kiba (much to his chagrin) saw that Neji was right. The walls were covered in a thick coat of rust, and the stalls and sinks were running red with blood, "Oh fuck… when did this happen!?"

"Shut up!" Neji whispered sharply, bristling, "Do you want every… _thing _in the whole fuckin' building to hear you?" Sighing, he relaxed back against the disgustingly grimy wall, "It happened right around the time I got locked in the elevator."

Although he was tempted, Kiba stifled the oncoming wisecrack. He was having a bad enough day already, and he didn't feel like waiting around for a medic he knew wouldn't come. Instead, he set his sights on the one question Neji ignored, "So anyway… who were you running from again?"

Immediately, Neji turned away. He wasn't going to say it; Kiba had no right to know. Only he, Tsunade and Gai knew about that night, about what happened, and he was going to make damn sure it stayed that way.

"Neji…" Kiba pressed, now totally intrigued, "Please… This mess is probably my fault anyway, so let me help fix it." I truth, he already had a pretty good guess who it was Neji was so afraid of. In addition to his mission info, he also received a copy of his targets police and hospital records. There was nothing too extraordinary on his police report, but his hospital records were another story. After his Chuunin exam check-in and the failed Sasuke retrieval mission, Neji was checked into the sexual assault ward. If anything was wrong with Neji, it had something to do with the attack.

"Help? You want to help!?" Neji scoffed, "You've done enough! If you hadn't… ugh, you probably led him here! Who hired you!? Was it him!?"

"Was it _who_!?"

"The repo-man!"

Totally flabbergasted, Kiba sat back, looking at Neji as if he'd grown another head, "The repo-man? Neji, is that the guy who—"

"Who what?" Neji whispered, his expression blank. He couldn't know, there was absolutely no way he knew about…

"The guy who… raped you."

Neji recoiled as if he'd been hit, "How the fuck do you know about that!?"

Kiba sat back on his heels, reaching a tentative hand towards Neji. He'd totally fucked up now… Neji probably thought that no one would find out, and he'd completely destroyed that theory, "It was part of my mission description… look, Neji no one else knows, and I swear to god my mouth is totally shut on the entire subject! I just want to help…"

"You want to help…?" Neji asked timidly, looking back at Kiba over his shoulder.

"Yes, I want to help."

Turning around, Neji shimmied up the two feet to where Kiba was sitting, taking his outstretched hand in his, "Then help me forget." He breathed.

What happened next, Kiba really couldn't say. All he knew was that Neji perched in his lap, arms around his neck and mouth firmly attached to his.

Neji's lips were fuller than any of the girls (and _guy_) he'd fooled around with before, and he _really_ knew how to work his tongue. Before he could grasp the situation, Kiba had flipped them over and taken control of the kiss, his tongue invading Neji's mouth, drawing a moan from the boy underneath him.

Kiba slid his free hand under the back of Neji's head, pulling his hair free of the half assed bun. Fisting a hand into the thick, dark locks, Kiba pulled them gently, planting light kisses and bites along the older boy's neck, trailing down to his collarbone.

Sliding the loose gray sweater off of Neji's shoulder, a spark of realization cut through the lust like a knife. This was the man who'd just begged him to hide him from his _rapist_. He'd been so terrified he'd _cried_. And now, probably from shock, he was desperately clinging to the one normal person he could get his hands on, and Kiba was taking advantage.

Pulling back, Kiba looked down at the boy beneath him. This wasn't the arrogant, stuck up little snot he barely knew. This was a horribly abused and frightened young man who was franticly trying to piece together some semblance of normality. It was awful what had happened to him, and it was awful how Kiba was letting himself forget about Neji's well being and instead taking what he wanted, what he wasn't even sure he wanted!

So why didn't he seem to care?

"This can't be real…" Kiba whispered, running the backs of his knuckles against Neji's cheek, "How could this be happening?"

Neji's hand encased his own, his fingers curling gently around his, "Then it isn't." He replied gently, kissing Kiba's knuckles softly, carefully as if he were going to pull his hand away.

Lowering his head, Kiba ran a trail of long, warm butterfly kisses along Neji's jaw, "How?" he asked, gently nibbling at Neji's throat.

"Trust me."

Looking up sharply, Kiba came face to face with one of the most beautiful smiles he had ever seen. Neji didn't beam or grin or even smirk… just a small quirk of his lips, but it seemed to transform his entire face. His eyes were brighter, cheeks healthier… he looked absolutely mesmerizing.

Kiba captured Neji's lips again, his tongue urging them apart, mapping out every curve and contour of his mouth. His hands found the waistband of Neji's pants and set to work on ridding the boy of those as quickly as possible.

Vaguely registering the small vial being shoved into the palm of his hand, Kiba knew he was on the verge of snapping. It just didn't seem real… nothing did. He couldn't think. He wouldn't allow himself time to think. If he thought, than this would be over, all of it and he knew he would never get this chance again.

Neji groaned softly as Kiba pushed into him, his fingernails digging grooves into his back. Kiba hardly noticed the sting of nails ripping at his skin or the small trail of blood flowing down his back, his head clouded as he thrust into the boy beneath him.

Hiking his thighs around his waist, Kiba growled deep in his throat, trying not to hear the small, pitiful sounds Neji was making as he drove into him. "Don't think" kept running through his head like a mantra, his eye's squeezed shut as he tried to ignore the fact that Neji's clawing at his back wasn't from pain or pleasure, but from genuine fear. He tried to ignore the boy's pleas for him to stop, to let him go, that "It hurts, oh god, please stop, _please_!" He tried to ignore the fact that he wasn't helping, and that he was, in fact, just as bad if not worse than the "Repo-man",

Soon, all the begging and the ragged sobbing stopped, and the room was deathly quiet, the only sound was the wet, sickening slap of skin on skin and Kiba's muffled groan as his orgasm slammed into him.

"Kiba…"

The smell of blood hit his nose, and his eye's immediately snapped open. Kiba sat back on his heels, his eye's wide.

"Kiba…" Neji croaked as a trail of blood ran down his chin. Arching his back, his blood soaked hair sticking to the floor, his hands shaking uncontrollably against the cracked, rusty tile. Trails of blood tracked down from his hair line, running over his face and pooling into his eyes.

"Oh god, Neji, what…?" Kiba trailed off, falling backwards as Neji grinned at him through the endless rivulets of red.

"Kiba." He said, his eyes almost purple from the blood, but still wide open, "Wake up you mother fucker before I kick in your shin!"

And with a slap, he was back in the present, staring at a non-bloody, not crying but very pissed off Neji.

"I've been calling you're name for ten fucking minutes! Jesus, when you're out you're out…" Neji stood up straight, holstering a blood stained gun in his bag. He looked terrible, but he wasn't drowning in pools of blood, so that was definitely a bonus.

"Yeah, I've heard that a lot." Kiba mumbled as he pulled himself to his feet, "And you swear _way_ too much." It was just a dream, he thought, a weird, totally inappropriate, down right out of place dream, but a dream nonetheless.

"What do you mean?" Neji asked, giving him a weird look, "I've only talked to you twice, and that was _today_." With a huff he turned towards the sink, turning on the water and vainly trying to get some of the blood out of his loose grey sweater.

"Huh… it was actually accurate." Kiba muttered, surprised how detailed his nightmare (cause really, what else could he call it?) was. Just like in his dream, Neji was wearing civilian clothes. Nothing special, just a baggy grey knit sweater and a pair of khaki Bermudas, but every single detail was accounted for, from the length of the shorts to the way the too big sweater hung loosely off his left shoulder. Everything was eerily similar.

"What was accurate?" Neji questioned, not taking his eyes off his sweater sleeve, frowning when the stain seemed to grow rather than dissipate.

"Ah, nothing, just a dream." Kiba walked over to Neji, grabbing hold of the boy's wrist, examining the damage done to the sweater, "Damn, you fucked this up. You're not gonna be able to get this out without a shit load of bleach."

Neji wrenched the aforementioned wrist out of Kiba's grasp, and with a frustrated groan, he rolled the sleeve up to his elbow, "Thanks for the insight, genius." Frowning again at the other sleeve this time, he rolled it up to, "Now who swears too much…?"

Not even dignifying that with a response, Kiba looked around the small restroom, cursing under his breath. Not only was his dream right about Neji's clothing, but it was also right about the rusty, bloody scenery, "When the hell did this happen?"

"Hmm?" Neji looked around, taking in the change in their surroundings with great ease, "Oh, this… I think it happened right around the time I bumped into that crazy bitch and got locked in an elevator."

"What was that?" Kiba demanded, eyes desperately searching Neji's face for any indication that he was joking, that he hadn't heard that. He couldn't have. He could understand that he could have dreamed about the clothes and the change in ambiance, because he was certain that he'd seen them before he fell asleep, but if he'd heard Neji correctly…

How could he dream about something, accurately, that he didn't know?

"What part?" Neji asked, a little put off by Kiba's tone of voice.

"The part about the elevator."

"I got locked in there after I met this Claudia chick." Neji said, recalling every little detail about what happened to him to an un-listening Kiba.

How the hell could he possibly have known that? Kiba distinctly remembered the Neji in his dream telling him that the mall had transformed after he'd gotten locked in an elevator. He'd dreamt something, probably before it even happened. How did that happen without—

"Wait, what?" Kiba asked, "Claudia? As in Claudia Wolf!?"

"Well, I didn't get her last name, but she said she was Claudia and she was here to witness the beginning of judgment." Neji replied, a little apprehensive as to why Kiba was so damn interested in that psycho.

"Shit, that sounds like her too…" Kiba leaned back against the grimy wall, running a hand through his bangs, "Neji, she's the chick who hired me to track you. She's the one who said that you were essential to her 'family' or something."

"What?" If looks could kill, Kiba would be a heap of ashes on the restroom floor. Neji looked as if he could murder him.

"Look, Neji, she seemed harmless enough. She was just asking for help and—"

"And she started _this_!" Neji shouted, slamming his fist against the sink, apparently not caring if he woke up all the evil beasties in the entire mall, "You helped her! You helped her do this to me!"

"Hey, I hate to rain on your pity party, but I'm stuck here too!" Kiba shouted back, bristling. He didn't care if he pissed Neji off anymore. If that asshole thought he was the only one in deep shit at the moment, he was sadly mistaken.

"Yeah, but your not the one who has to keep watching their fucking back!"

"Why the hell is that any different than what is happening to _me_!?" Kiba demanded, still fuming, but now genuinely confused. Neji wasn't stupid, he must have known that Kiba can see the monsters too, and that they have a nasty little habit of attacking anything that moves, which included _him_!

"Because you haven't spent the past three weeks in hell!" Neji was screaming at him now, going beyond anger into full blown hysterics, "You haven't had to install three new dead bolts on your front door! You haven't had to get an extra motion sensor for your bedroom! You don't have to worry every night before you go to bed, or when you leave the house, or when your taking a fucking piss that someone is going to shove a gun to your head and—"

Kiba took a step back as Neji's hands flew to his mouth, trying to get as far away from the Hyuuga's personal bubble as possible. His years of training were warring with his better instincts. All his shinobi training told him to keep his distance, and that Neji was unstable at the moment and would probably attack. His instincts, or rather his morals, were telling him that space was the last thing he needed, and that the poor guy was in way over his head.

He was snapped out of his little tug of war when Neji knelt down to pick up his bag, "Hey, where you going?" Kiba questioned.

"I just… just leave me alone. If it weren't for…" Neji mumbled, staring at the floor, "I gotta go, I gotta get out of here."

"Neji, wait, I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Neji replied, still not looking up, his hand fumbling with the door knob, "You couldn't have known who she was."

Kiba raised an eyebrow, taking a tentative step towards Neji, "Who is she, then?"

"I don't know." Neji chuckled, then chocked it back, hearing his own hysteria within the frantic giggle, "One of them, I guess. All I know is she _knows_ me. She knows stuff even I don't."

Kiba reached out, cautiously placing a hand over Neji's, stopping him from opening the door, "Y-you don't have to go alone."

"I know."

And then he was gone.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"A subway!? How the fuck did I get in a subway?"

Sasuke's question echoed throughout the empty space, the only sound joining it was the sharp slapping of Sasuke's slippers as he walked up towards the turnstiles.

He'd gone through the hole against his better judgment, expecting to end up in the room next to his, or maybe in the boiler room or something… but as soon as he got halfway through, he realized that it was much, much longer than he anticipated. And when he started to reach the end, it had started to change from a ragged, carved out cave in stone to an industrial pipe. Then he'd blacked out. The next thing he knew, he was passed out in the middle of the Hazel St terminal.

Walking down the abandoned halls, Sasuke cracked a smirk. He couldn't help it, the irony was just delicious. His final ultimatum; either starve to death in his apartment, or venture into the one place he hated more than the Uchiha compound, a subway.

He'd never ridden on one in his life. He never saw the point. He was a ninja, he could get anywhere he wanted on foot for free, and he'd get there just as fast as anyone on the subway. The only reason Konoha has a subway track was for the civilians.

So it really shouldn't have surprised him to find a civilian.

"Hey, hot stuff." The civilian called to him.

Sasuke was completely floored. It wasn't like he'd never seen a drag queen before, but this was just too fucking weird. He was escaping his apartment via the subway the appeared in his bathroom wall, and just happened to run into a _drag queen_.

"Hey, honey, you alright? You look fucking sick…" The man in the stilettos asked him, walking up to him with practiced ease, despite the four inch contraptions strapped to his feet.

"Uh, no, not really." Sasuke replied, "Who are you?"

"You don't know? You're in my dream and you don't know who I am?"

Sasuke was taken aback by the statement, "You're dream?" He asked, "You think this is a dream?"

"Well of course it is!" The man replied, "What else could it be? I'm Starla, by the way."

"Starla?"

"Well, it's really Hitoshi, but if you go spreading that around I'll fucking gut you." Starla stated unwaveringly, with a small humorless smile, "And who might you be, cutie pie?"

"Sasuke…" He replied uneasily, wary of the seemingly harmless man. He didn't know who was fucking with him, but he wanted them to _stop_.

"Well Sasuke, shall we?" Starla gestured towards the turnstiles, smile widening, "Or are we just gonna stand here and stare?"

Shaking his head, Sasuke started off down the hall, brushing past Starla. What did it matter if he helped a drag queen get out of the subway? It beat sitting at home watching a black TV screen.

They walked just two feet before Starla clasped a cold, skinny hand around Sasuke's fore arm, stopping him in his tracks.

"What is it?" Sasuke insisted exasperatedly.

"Fuck, I think I'm gonna puke!" Starla staggered forward a few feet, letting go of Sasuke's arm and attempting to regain his balance. With a couple more lurching steps, he made his way towards the bathroom door, and much to Sasuke's amusement, made a show of not going into the men's room. He knew he'd seen the guy before but he just couldn't remember.

Leaning against the adjacent wall, Sasuke slid down onto his ass, crossing his arms and closing his eyes. He knew the guy, he knew him. He was certain he'd seen him around quite a bit, but he just couldn't place where and when it was.

He was snapped out of his reverie when he heard the door swing open, "Finally, shit it took you long enough." He muttered, waiting for some snide comment or smart ass remark, but instead was greeted with ragged growls.

Looking up, his hand tightening around the lead pipe he'd grabbed from home, his eyes met something else's, or at least what was left of them.

Jumping to his feet, Sasuke dodged out of the way to the green dogs attack, whacking it across the back of the head with the pipe. The thing gave a low whine, but as soon as it had gone down, it was back up on its feet.

Giving the thing three more whacks, two to the head, and one last one to the back legs, it finally went down with an ear splitting cry.

"What the hell is this thing!?" Sasuke demanded, giving it a kick. He'd never seen anything like it in his life. It looked like a cross between a diseased dog and Orochimaru. The thing was green and flaking, its tongue grotesquely long and wrapping around its hind legs. It was fucking disgusting.

By passing the thing, Sasuke kicked open the bathroom door, only to find out that Starla wasn't there. There was, however, a big, ornate hole carved into the middle of the far wall.

"Oh well." Sasuke muttered under his breath, "Anything's better than this." Entering the hole, Sasuke could have sworn he saw Starla sitting in one of the over turned stalls, but before he could investigate, he wasn't in the subway anymore, but sitting on his bed.

Looking around, Sasuke deduced that it was, in fact his room.

He tried not to think. He tried not to think that his door was still locked, that there was a creepy, giggling, growing hole in his bathroom wall. He tried not to think that he might have just left someone to die.

Lying back against the pillows Sasuke closed his eyes, willing himself to just _sleep_, but he knew that with what was happening lately, it was absolutely no use.

It was going to be a long time before he could sleep peacefully again.

TBC.

A/N: Jesus, this took a long time and lots of long nights to finish, but thank god it's OVER. Next I have to tackle getting Tenten and Sakura's episode started. Wish me luck!


	5. 5

A/N: One of the longest chapters I've ever written by far, and I'm really not that happy with how it turned out. Hopefully everyone else likes it, but I couldn't be more disappointed with myself. Oh yeah, and the reason I wanted to make Cynthia a man is...

**If you don't know the Silent Hill series (specifically 4), or you just don't want to spoil the rest of the fic... you might want to go right on ahead to the beginning of the chapter**

_... because I want to keep all of Walter Sullivan's victims male so it won't seem as odd that Shikamaru of all people is the 20th "Mother Reborn" victim. So if Sharon Blake decides to make an appearance, then she'll likely be male too. The only exception to this will be Miriam Locane, and only because her twin is male, and they don't really end up as ghosts._

Okay then, on to the fic!

**Chapter 5-**

o(O)o(O)o

Stay with me, James! Don't ever leave me alone!

You're supposed to take care of me!

-_Maria, Silent Hill 2_

o(O)o(O)o

"And you got over there how?" Sasuke asked wearily, walking down the hallway towards the living room.

It'd finally happened. He'd resorted to talking to furniture. Sasuke Uchiha, the last of his family, the boy that had survived every mental beating his brother or the Hokage could deal out, had finally snapped. And all because his side table had decided to magically slide across the room.

He'd woken up after his little nap with less of a headache, but with a coffee craving that would put even the biggest caffeine addict to shame. On his way to the kitchen however, he noticed that his magical moving table of doom had once again... well, moved. It had been sliding across the living room since his door locked itself, and each time he'd moved it back, only to have it return to its favorite spot in the corner when he wasn't looking.

Sighing heavily, Sasuke walked up to the table, picking it up slightly and shifting it away when something caught his eye. It wasn't much, just a flash of something dark he saw out of the corner of his eyes, but it was enough to make him drop the table and go investigate.

In the corner where the table once sat, there was a gun and a note on the floor and a cluster of bullet holes in the wall, which had cracked open a peep hole into his neighbors apartment. Picking up the gun and the note, Sasuke flopped down on the floor next to the wall. He examined the gun first. It wasn't new, or very expensive looking, and with him being a shinobi, he really had no idea as to what constituted a good gun... but if it could blast that big a chip in his wall then it had to be powerful. And with everything that happened to be going on lately, it certainly might come in handy. Still, since he was locked in his house and he had absolutely no desire to go back to subway land, Sasuke really didn't have any need for it.

The note on the other hand was a little more interesting. Not only did the author seem to be in the same situation as him... but they also mention a Shikamaru not noticing, "Not noticing what...?" And what Shikamaru are they talking about, Sasuke thought. He only knew one, and he really wouldn't be surprised if that guy didn't notice... whatever he was supposed to notice. He thought that maybe it would be the bullet holes scarring his wall, but then he would have to—

"Oh, good god no." Sasuke groaned miserably, just catching sight of the coat that was hanging over the chair in his neighbor's apartment. The same one Shikamaru wore every single day... the one with the Nara crest on the sleeve.

"Fuck, I forgot someone lives there!" Sasuke shot to his feet; both note and gun in hand as he stalked over to the sink to fill up the kettle. Coffee, he needed coffee. How could he not have noticed that the man that was next in line to become Konoha's war tactician was living in the apartment next to his!?

"He not have been home a lot. Probably just has this place for when he needs to get away from his family." Sasuke deduced, pouring himself a cup of coffee. He couldn't think of any other explanation. He certainly would have noticed Shikamaru in the halls, getting his mail, leaving for work every morning, or even complaining if he hadn't been so worried about the dead bolted chains on his front door, the indestructible windows, and the growing hole in his bathroom wall. There was a vast and growing list of reasons that Sasuke would have loved to go over, if only to make himself seem like less of an idiot...

But unfortunately, the phone decided to ring.

"Shit!" Sasuke jumped, almost spilling his coffee. He took off down the hall towards the phone, his caffeine craving completely forgotten in his moment unabashed excitement. The phone was ringing. The phone was actually ringing! Something that could connect him to another human being was actually working! It didn't occur to him however, to even take a moment to think before he picked up the receiver. If he had, he'd have noticed that everything that's happened in the past four or five days had been carefully timed and thought out. If he had, he'd have thought twice before taking the call, if he even decided to take it at all. If he had though, he'd have noticed how futile it would be to try and ignore the goings on in his apartment and would have, no matter how badly he'd wanted not to, answered the phone.

"Hello...?" Sasuke asked tentatively, raising the receiver to his ear.

"...Where did you... go...?"

"Who... who the hell is this?" Sasuke demanded, his hand tightening impulsively around the receiver.

"Hurry... Save me..."

"Starla?"

"If you... need a token... I have..."

"Hello?" Sasuke pleaded, refusing to believe that his one human connection from inside his apartment within the past five days just hung up one him, "Hello!? Please, for fucks sake-!"

Only after listening to the droning of the dial tone for a while did he decide to give up. Sighing, he placed the receiver back in it's cradle, only to realize that the phone wasn't even hooked up to the wall.

Sasuke froze, his eyes wide with shock, and even though he'd suspected something was up from the moment he pick up the phone, he slid down the wall, landing with a dull thump on the carpet. He didn't want to think, hell, he hadn't sat down and thought about his situation since he found he was locked in. But he found he had to, once his mind supplied him with this valuable tidbit of information:

There was someone in there with him.

Someone who didn't want him to stay put, but who didn't want him running a muck either. Someone who had planned this whole scenario from beginning to end, mapping out every possible move he could make, and setting up traps to stop him. Someone who wanted him to follow their painstakingly beaten path, and end up at their carefully placed finish line.

So what was he supposed to do now? Was he just supposed to stay there and rot away in his little one bedroom apartment? Or was he gonna screw his captor over royally, and fight his way out.

"Fuck it." Sasuke muttered as he stood, storming over to his front door and reaching into the hall closet. If he was going to go back to that funky subway world, he was not going in his slippers again.

"I'm not gonna rot in here." He said to himself, grabbing the pipe he'd found before and slipping his other sandal on. Standing before the hole in his wall, Sasuke breathed in deep, steadying himself for no matter how hard he tried to stay tough, the wailing emanating from the giant gap was enough to make him shiver with anxiety.

Steeling himself, Sasuke crawled into the hole, not even noticing the fact that his shower had started to rain blood.

ooooooooooooooooooooooo

He'd just started to think that maybe things were okay, that maybe, just maybe, he'd be able to deal and carry on without screaming like a little girl. Then the giant dog jumped out of the display window of "Francesca's Jewelers", and he was proven wrong once again.

Neji stood up straight, wiping the blood off the bottom of his shoe on the dirty tile floor. No matter how many creatures, mutant dogs, spinning beetles and giant men in straight jackets came after him, it still got to him. Hell, the whole fucking place got to him, and why wouldn't it? He felt like he was going crazy!

"At least Kiba saw it too..." He tried to tell himself, but it only served to make things worse. Who cares if he could see what he saw, and hear what he heard, it doesn't change the fact that if it wasn't for him, Neji would never have ended up in this horrible predicament.

"Daddy..."

Neji whipped around, stopping his ascent up the elevator to look at a small rack of televisions. He could have just sworn he heard someone say-

"Da... Daddy..."

His eye's widened, and he backtracked off the escalator. He saw something in the static of the TV screen, a face. A little girls face, and he knew now, he _knew_ that he heard that little girl say "daddy". He moved closer, until his nose was almost touching the screen, straining to hear anything behind the steady, static drone.

Nothing. He could hear nothing, he could see nothing, and as frustrating as it was, he couldn't help but feel relived. He didn't think he could handle another shock today.

Sighing he stepped back, content at the moment to just let his mind take a back seat and continue on his journey to god knows where. But something was troubling him. It had been troubling him since he stepped off the escalator and onto the cracked and moldy tile. It was a door. A gigantic steel door. An eerily foreboding door, one that, unlike all of the other doors he had walked through that day, and in his lifetime of walking through doors he had yet to come upon.

It was a door of insurmountable proportions, covering the entire span of the wall with it's massive girth, and reaching far beyond the ceiling and into the next floor. It looked as if it would take all of his power to open it, and the deep red makings that formed the shape of a moon underneath an inscription gave him the feeling that he really, _really_ didn't want to go in there.

But something was pulling at him, telling him to go on, that he had to do this, that this is something he was sent here to do. Something deep down in the pit of his stomach was taking over, invading his mind and his body, pushing him aside like a rag doll, and leaving him to watch as it did what it want him to do, but that he refused to. An eerie feeling swept over him as he realized that this was exactly what happened in his dream. He hadn't wanted to step onto the roller coaster tracks, he hadn't even wanted to leave the entrance of the park... but he had. This feeling, this _thing_ that was pushing it's way up through his gut had made him take those first steps, so softly, so smoothly that he didn't even realize that it wasn't him moving, but someone else. Someone who had laid dormant inside him for a very, very long time. Someone who was making him take his first few steps through the giant door, and someone who was closing the great slab of metal behind him.

That was it. That was the last straw. Neji struggled to get control over his legs as his arms flailed out at his sides, _"Get out!" _he screamed wildly, trying to push that sinister presence out of his mind, out of his body, _"Get out, you piece of shit! Get out and leave me alone!!"_

And then it was gone. Just as quickly, just as effortlessly as it had arrived, it was gone. Relaxing as much as his body would allow, he looked back at the overly large door, knowing for a fact without even having to try that the door would not open. And that it was never going to open again. If he ever wanted to get out of here, he'd have to find his own way out.

And as determined as he was, he didn't notice the floor had given out under his feet until he landed ass first and a pile of rubble.

ooooooooooooooooooooooo

There. Kiba looked up the escalator once again, certain now that he had heard someone scream, not once but twice. Berating himself for not bringing Akamaru along (for the company if nothing else), he headed towards the sound, only to come face to face with one the most gigantic door he'd ever seen.

"For god sakes, whoever designed this place has crappy taste." Kiba muttered, giving the door a mighty push, hearing it squeal on it's hinges as it slowly opened. Looking past the giant slab of metal, all he was met with was darkness. Complete and utter darkness, drowning him as he walked past the enormous door, towards the only patch of light in the room.

Then he heard it. From the direction of the single spot of light, he heard the sound again, the scream. Only now, he knew what it was, who it was. It was a sound he had become all too familiar with in much too short a time. It was Neji.

Running towards the patch of light, he had to skid to a quick halt to avoid falling into the hole after Neji. Looking down, he saw the other boy, backed up against a wall, a bare light bulb hanging over his head, gun pointed out before him and shooting frantically at a tunnel in the wall before him. Before Kiba had a chance to react, something shot out of the hole below his feet, jaws wide as it lunged for Neji. The Hyuuga was as quick on his feet as always however, and managed to jump out of the way, leaving the snake like creature to dive head first into the wall.

The thing writhed around a bit, it's jaws snapping wildly, before it regained it's bearings and turned back towards Neji. The Hyuuga started to fire round after round at the snake, backing up towards the rows of tunnels under Kiba's feet, shouting madly at the beast, his hands shaking to the point where he could hardly keep the gun level. He recoiled with every shot, pitiful yelps escaping his lips everytime he started to lose his footing atop the piles of rubble.

Not being a lucky sort of person though, it obviously didn't come as a surprise to either Neji or Kiba when a familiar telltale clicking filled the room.

Staring at the gun in his hand as if it had personally done him a great disservice, Neji shook his head, unable to believe that this had happened to him not once, but _twice_, and this time it didn't look as if the creature was just going to decide to keel over.

"Neji!" Kiba shouted from above him, startling him out of his musings, and bringing him back to the predicament at hand, "Shoot at it's head!"

He was about to retaliate with a snappy response when three small red boxes hit the pile of rubble beside him. He snatched up the handgun ammo without a word. Neji could have kissed him if he wasn't seconds away from being eaten by a giant snake with thousands of large, pointy teeth.

Moving out of the way yet again, Neji leveled the gun at the things head, and waited for it to open it's colossal mouth, before he fired shot after shot into the snakes throat. The creature let out a disgustingly guttural cry as the seventh bullet ripped through the back of it's neck. Without warning, the snake fell forward, and before Neji could react is left leg was crushed under the immense weight of the monstrous beast.

Neji let slip a cry that rivaled the snakes as the bones in his left calf cracked under the overgrown reptile, his eyes watering and his stomach doing flip flops as he tried desperately to free himself, succeeding only in causing him to almost black out.

Kiba jumped down into the pit, intent on helping Neji and _not_ thinking about how the hell that thing (and all the things he'd seen that day) had gotten there, when the world moved from under his feet and a ear splitting static filled his head as he blacked out.

(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)

Neji was awoken by a horribly drilling pain, one that was immediately cast as the fourth "Most Painful Awakening" in his life.

The first was undoubtedly the night after he got his seal. The pain was so horrible he had spent the rest of the night curled up around the toilet on the bathroom floor, a bag of quickly _evaporating_ ice held to his forehead. He had spent two full days in that bathroom, his father coming in periodically to flush the toilet, wipe the sweat and bile from his neck and face, and bring him a fresh bag of ice. It was, without a doubt, the worst pain he had ever been in, despite only being six years old and not even a shinobi yet.

The second would have to be after his fight with Kidomaru. He couldn't walk for a month and a half, and for almost a year, he had to go to the hospital every second week so that the nurses could work on the slow healing, indescribably painful wounds in his side and shoulder. He couldn't sleep any other way but flat on his back with his arms at his sides for months afterwards, and even then, the dull, painful throbbing was enough to keep him awake.

The third was after his... incident. It wasn't as much painful (though thats not to say it wasn't at all) as it was embarrassing. He knew nobody but Gai, the Hokage and Sasuke knew what had happened, but everytime he limped, everytime he winced as he sat down, he felt as if the whole world knew, as if they were mocking him for being too soft, too weak, too pretty to be a ninja, much less a man, and god knows he'd been emasculated enough as it was. And the fact that he had a burn on his right thigh that festered and oozed and bled and refused to heal no matter what products, what jutsu's were used on it didn't help any.

This however, was undoubtedly the fourth, and he didn't even know what it was. All he knew was that his left calf was being jostled and shifted and it hurt like a son of a bitch. It wasn't like he had never broken his legs before, hell, he'd done it multiple times (especially when training with a pissed off Lee), but whoever was trying (futilely) to tie a splint around his leg was doing a really, _really_ shitty job of it. They were jolting and shoving and all but manhandling his leg, all the while cursing loudly, in a voice he wished he didn't recognize.

"Kiba?" Neji mumbled tiredly, wincing as the other nin dropped his leg, the sighed as he cursed under his breath, "What the hell are you doing with my leg...?"

"Trying to tie a fucking splint." Kiba muttered, obviously upset with himself for not remembering the most basic of first aid procedures, "I swear to god, if I had a dollar for every time Hinata tried to show me how to do this, I'd be rich, and I wouldn't need Claudia Wolf's filthy money."

Sitting up slightly, Neji looked over at Kiba's handiwork. It was sloppily done, and wasn't getting any better, so Neji swatted Kiba's hands away, taking over. But not before he noticed the familiar scenery of the _normal_ Konoha mall. He was back.

Sighing softly, he went about bandaging up his leg, wincing slightly whenever he jostled it. He was relieved to see that it wasn't crushed or splintered like he thought it would be, just fractured, "When did we get back?" He asked, not lifting his head from his handiwork.

"I woke up about ten minutes ago," Kiba replied, "But it happened right after you killed that thing."

Neji looked up this time. Kiba sounded so despondent, and for _Kiba_... it was almost as strange as seeing a serious Gai, "What's wrong?" he inquired warily, moving towards him a bit, though still being mindful of his leg.

At first he thought Kiba was just going to ignore him, and hope he wasn't going to repeat himself. Then he moved closer to Neji, taking his chin in his hands and forcing him to look at him. Neji tried to look away, to move back, knowing that he should be terrified, that he should be angry. The only thing that terrified and angered him at that moment however, was the fact that he wasn't upset with Kiba, that he wasn't scared of him. That he did in fact feel sorry for him.

"Don't you ever, _ever_ run away like that again, okay?" Kiba whispered, albeit a bit harshly, "I don't care how pissed off you get with me, how much you want to kill me for what I've done, for what part I've played in this mess... You can't run off on me again!" He bit his lip, trying to calm himself down as he continued, "You... I don't know why, but there's something special about you. Something that these monsters, that Claudia, that whoever else might be here wants. And by the looks of things, it's not going to stop anytime soon."

Neji turned his head away, choosing to look at the fountain instead of the other man, "By the looks of things, it already has." He turned back towards Kiba, "So I'm going to leave."

"Do you choose not to listen to anyone else but yourself, or is it just hereditary?" Kiba shot back, standing next to Neji as he struggled to stand, "Jesus man, you can't seriously be thinking that this is over. Poof, done, just like that? You killed the big monster and now you can just go home!? It doesn't work that way Neji!"

"What the hell do you know!?" Neji replied sharply, "You spend a few hours in this place and you think you know how it works? I can tell you right now with almost complete certainty that you haven't even touched the tip of the iceberg! There is so much you don't know, so much I don't know, but you aren't a part of it! You never were! You're just some ninja that Tsunade picked out of a hat to follow some crazy chicks orders! You shouldn't even be here!"

"But I am!"

Neji's rant stopped dead in it's tracks, his mouth snapping shut as he tried his best to look just and indignant.

"As much as you wish I wasn't here right now, I am." Kiba continued, "Trust me, I'd rather be at home, with friends and family, enjoying my Saturday, but I'm not. And neither are you. We're both in the same fucking situation Neji, so get it through your head and stop fighting me!"

Neji opened his mouth to reply, but quickly stopped himself, struggling to stand, "I know we are, Kiba, but I'm not just going to grin and bear it." Using the fountain as a crutch to help him gain his footing, he wobbled to his feet, trying to keep as much pressure off his left leg as possible, "I'm not just going to sit here and wait for someone to show. I'm not so _stupid_ that I'd expect anyone to-"

Kiba quickly sprang to his feet the second he saw Neji start to wobble. Catching the other boy, he moved him to rest against him chest until he could regain his balance...

"_This can't be real, how can this be happening...?"_

_A smile, a genuine smile, one so sincere he was certain he'd never see one like it again._

"_Then it isn't."_

"_How?"_

_A kiss. A touch. A pale foot running up the side of his calf. And then the eyes. The eyes so white and young, that seemed to know so much more then they should, that seemed to house something, some_one_ else within them._

"_Trust me."_

Kiba started, shocked out of his thoughts as Neji pulled away from him. He stumbled back a bit, though not enough for the other to notice. What the hell was that? Why did he have to remember that know!? It was bad enough he had that vile dream to begin with, but apparently now everytime he touched Neji he was going to remember it? Uh-uh, that wasn't happening.

It wasn't that he didn't (or refused to) recognize Neji as a good looking young man, hell, he even commented on it from time to time. But the fact that he could even think of doing something so horrible, so despicable...

"Neji, please. You have absolutely no reason to trust me," Kiba, seeing that he was obviously going to interject, cut in, "But I'm the only chance you have of getting out of here, and you mine. We are the only two people here besides Claudia, and since we're already working under the suspicion that she's a maniacal freak who wants us dead... well..."

"I get it." Neji answered a snappily, all resentment gone from his voice this time, "I understand what you're trying to say and I'll... stick with you... but so help me god, if you do one thing to make me think that you're going to hurt me, you son of a bitch-"

"Alright, alright let's just... get a move on." Kiba interrupted, placing his hand on Neji's shoulder, only to have it brushed off the second it touched skin, "There's a subway up ahead, we can that that back to our district and get you home."

Nodding almost unnoticeably, Neji started to hobble towards the direction of the subway, brushing past Kiba. Head still held high even though he had a splint on his one leg, a burn on the other and one hell of a chip on his shoulder. Still proud after everything he'd been through, and what he was undoubtedly (at least in Kiba's mind) was going to go through again.

"You coming, or you just gonna stand there catching flies all day?"

"Cool it, I'm coming." Kiba shot back, a ghost of a smile flitting across his face. "It could have been worse," he thought, "I could have been stuck with a crier."

ooooooooooooooooooooooo

"The one day Gai _insists_ everyone has to show up..." Tenten grumbled, "And I'm the only one who does!"

Sitting down heavily onto the wet grass, she leaned back against the dummy she had been impaling for the past hour and a half. She was used to getting stood up at training, as Gai and Lee usually have their own little training sessions they cook up for themselves, but not by Neji. Never by Neji. She heard he was in the hospital, and she would have gone to visit him, if it weren't for the two stationed guards at the doors to his room. So she sent him a letter and some flowers instead, hoping that he'd be back on his feet soon to help her deal with the rest of their team.

"But he should be out by now..." Tenten said softly, to no one in particular. Grunting a bit, she picked herself up off the soggy grass, wiping the stray blades off of her ass. "First no one shows up, now I have to change," she grumbled, "What else could happen?"

She had meant for that to be rhetorical.

Just a few hours later she found herself on a train headed towards a little out of the way town with Sakura Haruno.

It was a missing persons case, just a simple look around for three people who had gone missing from a few nearby villages and who had last been seen in the town. In all honesty, Tenten didn't know more than that, as she hadn't talked to Sakura since they got on the train. The other girls seemed tired and miserable, like someone had just ran over her cat. She really didn't want to bother the girl, but she had to know, "So, who are we going to look for anyways?"

"Just three missing people. A store clerk, a delivery boy and a runaway. Nothing really special." Sakura replied, staring distantly out the window, "Their names are James Sunderland, Angela Orosco, and Eddie Dombrowski."

"That's it!?" Tenten exclaimed, "Just three, ordinary people? The Hokage sent us to go search for three _ordinary_ civilians? Didn't she have anyone else to send?"

"She did, but that's not why we're being sent there." Sakura stated a matter o' factly, "We're being sent because a young girl who was friends with Sunderland's wife has wound up dead. She was also seen in the vicinity of the town. Her name was Laura." She said somberly, looking over at Tenten for the first time since they were sent on their mission, "She was eight years old."

"So she thinks the others might be dead or in danger too?"

"Right?"

"So we might be in for a fight?"

"Yup."

"So why the hell are you in civilian clothes?"

Sakura looked down at herself. She wasn't wearing anything much, just a baby blue tank and a skirt, "Well, I figured we're going after three civilians who obviously don't want to be found, so why, in the interest of the mission, should we let them know we're ninja? It'll just give them reason to bolt."

"Shit, you're right..." Tenten muttered, looking down at her usual training outfit, wishing she had thought to bring something a bit more casual, "Damn."

"Here." Sakura handed the girl her back pack, "There's a change of clothes in there. Jeans and a tee shirt, nothing fancy, but it'll keep us as incognito as we're gonna get." She said with a smile.

Tenten smiled back politely, heading towards the washroom in the other car. The train rocked as it sped down the tracks, the hanging overhead lights swinging side to side. "That's funny," she thought, "Where the hell did everybody go?"

There was no one in any of the other seats, and all of the tables in the dining car were empty except for plates of half eaten food. Tenten frowned. She knew, she just _knew _thatthe dining car was full of people when they first arrived there.

Slipping into the small bathroom, Tenten shut and locked the door behind her. Even though there was no one there to lock it against... it still made her feel safer. She dressed quickly, wanting to be out of the claustrophobic little room as soon as possible.

She had barely finished with her belt before the lights overheard started to shake and flicker violently. Running out into the hall, Tenten took off running down into the dining car, only to fall flat on her face the moment she reached it.

The breaks squealed as they ground to a sharp stop, throwing plates and glass and silverware off the tables. Tenten covered her head against the barrage of cutlery, wincing as she felt a steak knife nick her ankle. Jumping to her feet, Tenten made a run for the door to the car, only to have it slam shut and lock itself.

"Fuck..." She muttered, her eyes wide as she stared at the window next to the door. A slow, steady fog blocked out all outside scenery, leaving only a shifting inky blackness outside the tinted glass. She tried the door, but to no avail. She couldn't for the life of her get it open.

Looking back outside the window, Tenten tried to see through the fog, wanting to at least know where she was, and maybe if she could see any other passengers. She didn't she anybody. She couldn't see anybody if she wanted to, and for the love of god, she wanted to. The second she looked out the window she wanted someone there. Someone who's hand she could hold. She was scared, and she didn't have the slightest idea as to why. That was until the windows began to fog over, however.

Tenten frowned as she moved closer to the window, her nose almost touching the glass in an attempt to figure out what the hell was forming on the window. It was like fog, like the inside of the train was too warm for the outside, but it was pink. A light pink, like diluted red paint. The kind of colour you get when you accidentally throw a red sock in with a load of whites.

She raised her hand to the window, dragging her index finger lightly across the glass, just enough to take some of the light pinkish substance (that was gradually getting thicker and becoming more red, less pink by the second) with it. Bringing her finger up to her nose, she gave it a quick whiff and touched it to her tongue before recoiling in horror and wiping her hand and tongue furiously on her (Sakura's) tee-shirt.

"Blood..." She stammered, "It's blood... and it's everywhere."

The blood was no longer diluted with the fog, now staining the windows a deep red. Long rivulets of crimson ran down to the window sill, dripping of the ledge in large, fat drops. Each drop hit the parquet with a sickeningly loud 'plop', gathering in pools around the off white molding, turning them from a half decent but yellowing white to that horrible pinkish colour.

Standing in the middle of the dining car, Tenten stood perfectly still. She didn't know what else to do. She wasn't going to touch anything, she decided. She was going to stand there and slap herself until she woke up, probably after just having fallen asleep in her and Sakura's seat. They would arrive at the destination minutes after, locate the missing people and bring them back to their respective villages, and then she could go home, have a bath, and forget the whole thing.

Unfortunately, things never work out the way you plan them.

The blood on the window directly in front of her moved to the side, droplet by droplet until only a thin sheen was left covering the glass. Stepping forward, Tenten looked out the window. There, walking into the forest as if by someone else's will, was Sakura.

Tenten cursed under her breath, heading towards the exit. To her surprise, the doors slid open easily, letting the rain that was pounding on the roof of the car start to soak her new clothes.

Running off in the direction of the forest, Tenten didn't even notice the sign on the side of the road:

"Welcome to Silent Hill! The Happiest Place in the West!"

ooooooooooooooooooooooo

Sasuke didn't know whether to kill it or poke at it until it did something.

He felt stupid. Of course he felt stupid! He was standing in the middle of an abandoned subway, doing absolutely nothing when he was supposed to be saving Starla from whoever else was in there with them. Well, that was a lie, he wasn't doing nothing. He was staring dumbly at a pulsating string of flesh that was coming out of the wall.

"It looks kinda human..." He muttered as he stooped down to it's level, reaching out a finger to poke at it. He wasn't sure what kind of germs or diseases that thing could have, but it was just so bizarre, he couldn't help it. He was just about to touch the thing when the loudspeaker crackled.

"Sasuke!? Sasuke, come get me, please!"

He jumped back, wrenching his hand away from the cord of rotting human flesh and cradling it to his chest.

"Sasuke please! I'm in the terminal! He's coming for me, oh god, he wants to kill me! Please!"

"Oh, God." Sasuke took off towards the Lynch Street line, his sandals slapping against the tile in his mad rush to get there in time. He didn't understand it, he'd just met the guy. He didn't know a thing about him, so why the hell did he care what happened to him?

"Because he's in the same situation as me." Sasuke thought to himself, pushing himself to move faster, telling himself that if he didn't step it up, he'd be too late, that he'd never make it in time to save Starla...

God, he hated when he was right.

Stepping into the terminal was one of the worst experiences of his life. He wished he could have back outside and locked the door. He wished he could forget about the drag queen he just met and go back to hi stuff apartment and wait for the whole thing to blow over, even though he knew it wouldn't.

It was the hardest thing (besides burying his entire family in one day) he ever had to do to sit down beside Starla, to sit down in pools of his blood and watch him struggle to breathe. He could hardly bear it as he lifted the mans head just enough to let him rest on Sasuke's thigh, the gouge in the back of his head dripping blood onto his bare skin, staining it along with the hem of his shorts. He couldn't watch him try to talk through a mouthful of blood.

"It's just a dream right?" Asked Starla, his eyes swollen shut, "It's all just a dream..."

Sasuke nodded softly, focusing more on the mark on his chest than to what he was saying. He'd seen a system of numbers like that before... only different. And not just once either, but twice. One was crossed out on Neji's thigh and covered with a burn the night he found him. That one was an incomplete form of Starla's, 16121. But the other...

The other was the night of the massacre. The only person in the Uchiha complex who was dead before Itachi got there. His uncle. With the numbers 13121 carved into his neck.

"Sasuke...?"

"Yes?" Sasuke snapped out of his daze, leaning forward so the other man wouldn't have to strain himself too much.

"I feel like... I'm dying..." Starla coughed, blood spraying from in between his clenched teeth, spraying Sasuke in the face and staining his white button up. His hands clutched at his shirt, leaving fingerprints up and down the front of him, as he curled up into the fetal position against Sasuke's thigh.

"It's alright." Sasuke whispered, hating how miserable, how guilty and how pitiful he sounded. He didn't sound like himself at all and he hated it, "It's... just a dream."

The hand against his chest tightened to an almost painful grip, before sliding away and hitting the floor with a dull thump. The head on his thigh rolled off, landing gently onto the tile as Starla let loose his last breath.

And then he was back in his bed, safe, sound, with only the blood stains and fingerprints on his white shirt to stand as evidence of him ever being there. And a dark red plate on the foot of his bed to show that Starla was there too.

TBC.

A/N: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, IT'S DONE! I hate this chapter, I hate it. I re-wrote it six times... SIX TIMES! I'm in need of a new beta, seeing as mine just doesn't like to return my emails anymore, so this chapter was (obviously) un-edited, but as soon as I can get someone to do that, it's coming down and being put right back up again. Hopefully when I get a new beta the time in between each update will start to go down a bit (or a lot, whatever).


	6. 6

**Chapter 6**

~o(O)o(O)o~

Happy people can be so cruel.

- Claudia Wolf _Silent Hill 3_

~o(O)o(O)o~

"Starla..."

The ambulance finally drove away from the entrance to the subway. Sasuke stood, looking out his window, not saying or doing anything, just as he had been for the past hour. He hadn't been able to help him. He hadn't been able to help Starla, even though he had just met him only an hour ago, and it killed him. He hated it. Not only had he lost the one and only person that he had talked to in days, he had lost control of the situation. He had not been able to help the other man, and in his mind, it was a sign of defeat, a white flag of surrender from his side of the battle field. And it was a battle. He just didn't know who or what his enemy was.

Sighing, Sasuke stepped away from his window, sick of everything, especially himself. Being cooped up in a room for days on end really makes you start to hate yourself, he mused. Turning on the radio again, he managed to pick up the same conversation he had heard the police and the paramedics having just seconds before.

Marks etched in his chest, stall covered in blood... no sign of any fingerprints or any evidence of anyone else being there. Sasuke could tell that the police were astounded and completely frustrated by the lack of clues and evidence. They even found the murder weapon, a small exact-o knife like the ones used to open boxes, but there wasn't a single fingerprint...

That, however, wasn't why Sasuke was listening (or rather eavesdropping on) the cops conversation. He trying to make absolutely sure that Starla was dead, trying to determine if his suspicions were correct or not, and as it usually happened, they were.

If you die in the otherworld, you die in real life.

"Great, just great." He muttered, "Another reason to not fall asleep..."

* * *

"Keep up, or I'll leave you behind!"

"Ooh, threats from the guy with his leg in a splint."

"Shut up."

"Come here and make me!" Kiba resisted the urge to stick his tongue out (barely), instead settling for glaring Neji's back. As frustrated as he was with the other's sharp tongue and smart ass remarks, he had to admit he was happy to have some semblance of the old Neji back. It was ordinary, it was something he knew well, and he welcomed it. If he had to deal with all the freaky shit that had happened so far, he didn't want to have to do it alone, and especially not with a twitchy, not-so-normal Neji. Not that he was saying that _this _Neji was anything close to normal, but it was better when he was like this. Childish and arrogant, instead of terrified and defensive.

"Instead of being scared of me..." Kiba muttered, looking down to his feet, feeling a bit defensive himself. He knew Neji had a reason to be nervous, especially since he was the one who had been stalking the older boy for the past two weeks, but... he didn't understand why, in a time of crisis, he didn't just accept the situation he was in (that they were both in) and stop fighting him.

Kiba was so immersed in thought that he didn't even realize that he had passed Neji until he heard a loud gasp and then a groan of disgust. Turning back, he found Neji standing beside one of the ticket booths, eyes wide and a hand thrown across his mouth as he stared into the small room as if against his will.

Wasting no time, Kiba hurried to his side, pushing the door wide so he could get a better look at whatever had spooked Neji so badly, only to be hit with the smell of drying blood and rotting entrails.

"Oh god!" Kiba moaned, covering his mouth and nose as his eyes started to water from the smell, unable to tear his eyes away from the crime scene in front of them, the back part of the booth wrapped with police tape and covered in gore. Choking back a gag, he tried to get his body moving, to do something to stop the smell permeating the air around them.

Neji groaned, reaching out before him and shut the door. When Kiba gave him a questioning look, he shrugged, "I don't want to deal with that right now, thank you." He said, "Besides, looks like the cops already got to it. There's no body, so there's really nothing to be done, I guess."

Nodding, Kiba looked around, trying to regain his bearings, "Listen, I'm gonna go look for a map, that sound okay?" He reached past Neji into the bag slung on his shoulder, pulling out the gun from the mall, "I'm taking this, just in case there's anything up ahead. This place should be fairly safe. It's well lit, so you'll be able to check your surroundings..." Surveying the room they were in, Kiba smiled, "Hey, who knows, we might actually bump into someone normal, and not insane."

"You're just going to leave me here, unprotected... because it's well _lit_!?" Neji fumed, bristling like a kicked cat, eye's narrowing dangerously.

"I'm only going to be gone for a second!" Kiba replied, startled at how quickly the other boys mood could change, "I'll be back before you know it. Besides, don't you think your safer here, where you at least have some idea as to whether it's safe or not, than hobbling around in the dark with me?"

Still miffed, but not as visibly upset, Neji backed down, crossing his arms and acting like an overgrown child. He sighed and leaned back against the closed toll booth door, running a hand through his bangs as he tried to come back to his senses, "Your right, I..." He stopped, frowning, "I'm sorry, okay?"

Grinning, Kiba stepped forward, stooping down a bit so he was face to face with Neji, "Stay put, alright? I don't want to have a repeat of last time." He said, still grinning as he tried to digest the fact that Neji had just said he was sorry.

His reply was a brief nod, and a small smile from behind a curtain of dark bangs, "It's just this place, it's got me turning into a spaz. The sooner we get out of here, the better." With that, he turned and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms, "I'll stay here."

"You better." Kiba said, turning and walking off down the hall.

Once he was out of sight, Neji groaned loudly, fisting his hands in his hair. He was so frustrated! He didn't mean to be a pain in the ass, he just... he couldn't control himself. He was skittish, and it was killing him. He wasn't used to being so dependent on another person's presence. He knew that it was him that kept getting them into trouble, and that Kiba was being a real good sport about it, seeing as his actions were probably going to end up killing them both.

"I'll be fine." Neji reassured himself, or at least tried to, "I just got to get a hold of myself, before I end up dead." _Before we _both _end up dead_, his mind quickly threw in. And it was something he had to keep reminding himself of. As awful as this whole experience was to him, it was pretty damn terrible for Kiba too. He wanted to be a brat and whine and complain that everything always happened to him, and that he really didn't give two shits about what Kiba was going through, but unfortunately, he found he was just a _little_ too mature to act like a baby.

"Still, I'm allowed to feel a little sorry for myself, I guess." He muttered to an empty terminal, "I did... I mean I was..."

_Raped! Just it! _He silently urged himself, _Just say it and you'll feel a hell of a lot better! You were raped!_

"This is pathetic!" He groaned, "I can't even say it to an empty room!" And it was true. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get the word out of his mouth. It would just sit there, on the tip of his tongue, clinging for dear life, desperate not to escape his lips. It was as if he was scared that someone had hidden a camera somewhere in the room, and that the second the words left his mouth, the whole town would know what had happened... what he _let _happen.

_No, you didn't _let_ it happen, _he tried to assure himself, _you didn't fight, but what else could you do with the barrel of a gun stuck down your throat? You're a shinobi, danger is part of the job description. Its a hazard of the workplace, unfortunately._

"Enough!" Neji's voice echoed through the empty terminal, "Enough soul searching for one day..." Walking up to a row of token machines, he slumped down in a corner and resumed waiting for Kiba to get back.

Out of the corner of his eye, however, he saw something interesting. Not crazy monster interesting, but it was enough to get his attention. A newspaper... not today's newspaper, but it brought a sense of normalcy that Neji missed dearly. Picking up the brown, wrinkled paper, he settled against the ticket booth, reading the one legible article:

"Fatal Accident At Hazel Street

At about 11 PM on the 4th, a man waiting on the platform at the Hazel Street station fell onto the tracks and was decapitated by the arriving St. Renata College-bound train. The victim died instantly. While police have not yet determined whether the death was an accident or suicide, witnesses report that the victim did not look inebriated and seemed to jump off the platform deliberately.

The victim's identity is still unknown. He was approximately 40 years old, 5 feet 10 inches tall, and was wearing a black jacket."

"Huh." Neji frowned, placing the paper back on the token machine he took it from, "That's today's date... just two years ago." Maybe it was a coincidence, but he would keep it in mind, he decided. Everything he'd found so far seemed to have some kind of relevance or secret meaning, and if he needed that particular piece of a puzzle somewhere down the line, he'd rather have it than not.

The newspaper shifted on top of the machine before falling off the edge onto the floor. If Neji was any other person he probably would have just left it there, but he wasn't, and unbeknownst to most people, he was a neat freak, and overly polite. The thought that someone else would have to pick up the paper off of the floor overrode the thought that someone else had left it there in the first place.

Stooping down and being careful not to bend his leg, he picked up the paper, ready to stand back up before he heard a noise not unlike an object being pulled from a puddle of mud.

His eyes widened, and carefully he inched towards the row of machines before him, ready to turn. He reached his hand towards his bag, undoing the clasps, and in one swift movement, stood and turned, so his back was against the wall of metal.

He was more confused than scared. Across the terminal, there was a dripping, reddish brown hole in the wall; about five feet by four, with what looked like a woman crawling out of it. Strings made of the same gooey material as the hole in the wall clung to her arms and legs, making her look like a twisted marionette. She was dressed in a skimpy outfit with outrageously high stiletto boots, but what caught Neji's attention (other than that she was crawling out of a wall covered in blood) was the marking carved into her chest.

"16121." Neji muttered, unconsciously tracing the outline of the burn on his thigh.

He gasped as the strings that were holding her to the wall broke, and he shoved his hand into his bag, fumbling around for his gun, "God damn it, Kiba!" He cursed as he realized that the dog nin had swiped it from him.

"Stay here, you'll be safe, it's well _lit_," Neji grumbled as he looked around for something to defend himself with, "Yeah right." He found purchase with a lead pipe, sitting casually in between the machines as if it were meant to be there.

He whipped the pipe out in front of him, only to see it pass right through the woman (who it turned out wasn't a woman after all, but a man in drag), as he neared the last couple of inches separating them, now so close their noses touched. And Neji found he couldn't move.

"Neji!" Kiba sprinted up to him, and Neji could have done a little dance if he weren't paralyzed with.. fear? Curiosity? Disgust? He didn't know, but he was sure he had never been as happy to hear Kiba's voice in his life. He would yell at him later for not just shooting the thing from across the terminal.

"What the hell did I tell you!? I told you to stay put, don't you ever listen?"

Neji whipped his head to the side, in control of his motor skills once again as he stared at Kiba in disbelief, his eyes wide and mouth hanging open like a fish. Was he stupid, or did he just not notice the _thing_ hanging a mere centimeter away from his face?

"Kiba..."

"No! Don't 'Kiba' me! If we're gonna get through this, we have to cooperate, and yes, that includes _you_!"

Neji raised a brow, forgetting the drag queen for a moment, as he contemplated how a man so unaware of his surroundings could ever have become a ninja, "Kiba, seriously-"

"Do you know how difficult it is to work with you when you're like this? I don't know what's going through your head right now, but I would appreciate it if you dealt with it, so we could get going and get home in one piece! I mean-"

"Kiba!"

"What!?"

With an expression akin to complete disbelief, Neji pointed a finger towards the floating, bleeding monstrosity that had been waiting patiently for their conversation to be done.

Kiba blanched, grabbing the gun from his belt and backing up to the token dispensers beside Neji, "Holy..." Gaping, he pulled the trigger, firing a couple rounds at the man. Just as the pipe had before, the bullets flew through him and out the other side, lodging themselves into the wall on the other side of the terminal.

Dumbstruck, and at a loss for ideas, Neji turned back towards the man in drag, staring him in what was left of his face, unsure of why he was just floating there, and if he should take this moment to run or not.

Before he could make a decision, the man shook his head, twitched, and floated away in the direction they came from.

"What the hell just happened?" Kiba asked, holstering the gun in the waistband of his jeans once more.

Neji scoffed, and tucked the pipe into his bag as best he could, realizing that he wasn't about to get his gun back anytime soon, "What, besides you being a total moron?"

"Fuck you, and yeah, I mean, is it gonna attack or not?"

"No." Neji replied quickly, "It's not here for us."

Not wanting to push the subject of how the hell he knew that, and why he didn't just say that in the first place, Kiba realized he was blocking Neji between him and the token machines. I must have moved in front of him when I shot at the ghost, he mused, backing up so that Neji could pass. He didn't miss the light blush that colored the Hyuuga's cheeks, nor did he miss his own racing pulse as Neji brushed passed him.

"Come on, I found our stop." Kiba said with a sigh as he reached out and grabbed Neji's wrist.

Neji gasped, flinching as he slapped his hand away. He cradled his wrist to his chest as if it had been burned, turning his eyes to the floor in embarrassment. He hadn't meant to do that... he just did.

To his surprise, Kiba just smiled.

"Neji, I know you don't trust me." He opened his mouth to protest, but Kiba held up his hand, "No, I know you don't, and I don't blame you. We don't know each other very well, we haven't gotten off on the best foot possible and this atmosphere, what's happening... it's not a good situation." He fisted his hands in his hair, "And it all has to do with you. Everything that's happening right now Neji, is because of you. There's something about you, something that Claudia wants, that those monsters want. It's what the man who raped you wants as well."

Kiba paced across the terminal, his hands stuffed in his pockets and back towards Neji, fishing around for the right words, "But..." and with that he turned around, his fanged smile still in place, unwavering, "Whatever it is that makes you so damn special, I'm not about to let them get their hands on it, or on you." His hand was on Neji's shoulder now, and for some reason, he didn't move away as Kiba's fingers gently tightened their grip, "I'm gonna make sure you get home, safe and sound."

"You don't need to do that. I can take care of myself." Neji muttered, his eyes on the floor.

"I know you can, but you _are_ hurt... and this isn't really familiar territory is it?"

Neji shook his head, looking Kiba in the eyes, "Thank you." He whispered.

Kiba didn't know whether to gape or laugh. Neji had surprised him way too much that day, more than he had in their years of casual acquaintance. He had apologized, he had said thank you... he had cried, splintered his leg. All in all, it seemed to be a very eventful day for him. And now it seemed he was going to be able to get him to cooperate, which was what he needed, desperately.

"We should get to our stop." Neji said, "You said you found where it was? I never take the subway, I find it a little pointless."

"Me neither." Kiba admitted, "But after staring at the map for a while, I found a line that takes us straight to the Ichiraku, and then from there it's just a short walk back to both our compounds." Starting off down the hallway, Kiba motioned for Neji to follow, only to find him lost in his own thoughts once again. Rolling his eyes, he reached for his wrist once again, leading him down the hall to their stop.

And this time, Neji didn't flinch away.

* * *

Sakura, despite the rain she had just sprinted through, was bone dry.

It was odd that her hair was damp and cold, as were her clothes and extremities, but not wet. It felt more like she had walked through a light mist than a storm. And the area she had walked into was heavy and humid, covered with trees and other greenery... so much so that she found she welcomed the dampness of her hair and shirt.

A thick fog blanketed the area, and for the life of her she couldn't tell where she was. All she knew was that she saw a woman with dark brown hair that matched the description of Angela Orosco to a 'T'. She had spotted her outside of her window from the train, and when they made their unscheduled stop, she took it as a sign and went after her.

"Angela Orosco." Sakura muttered, trying to recall the information she had received from her mission statement, "19, brown hair, brown eyes, ran away from home soon after her father's death..." Crossing her arms cross her chest, she rubbed at her arms, frustrated with the lack of landmarks on the path she was walking, "I'm going to get so lost."

The fog thickened, and the air felt so heavy it was like breathing in water. Sakura walked passed a set of rod iron gates that looked like they hadn't moved in centuries, covered in moss and vine, as were the gray stone walls that sat beside them. The grass in this area was thicker, and while still overgrown, looked like it had been taken care of at one point or another. Willow trees framed the area, and in the distance she could see a pond with a small chapel beside it.

"Oomph!" Sakura landed on her knees in the grass, catching herself seconds before her face hit the ground. Grumbling, she looked over her shoulder, trying to find what she had tripped over.

"Great, so this is a cemetery." She had caught her foot on a small inlaid tombstone that was sticking out about and inch or so out of the ground. Looking around again, squinting through the fog, she saw a few others, some big, some small... and suddenly the chapel that she saw on the horizon made sense.

"Need a hand?"

Startled, she glanced upwards, almost smacking her face off of the aforementioned hand, "Thank you." She said, as the tall, blonde man pulled her to her feet, "I'm sorry, you just startled me a bit."

"It's alright... This place has me a little on edge too." He smiled, his blue eyes were electrifying in the thick blanket of fog. His hairline was slightly receding, and around his eyes wrinkles had begun to form, but he still couldn't be more than 35 years old... "My name's James, who're you?"

James... James Sunderland. Her mind registered immediately that _this_ was the man she was looking for. Best play along, she thought, "My name's Sakura... May I ask what you're doing here, James?"

"Of course." James said, "I'm looking for Mary, my wife. I got a letter from her, saying she would meet me here, in Silent Hill." Now, finally, the smile disappeared and was replaced with a troubled frown, "Still, I haven't found her yet. I'm not sure if I ever will."

This is going great! Sakura thought to herself, and she smiled, leaning on a nearby gravestone. The man thinks his dead wife is alive, and he's searching for her in the middle of nowhere. At least he likes to spill his guts. "When was the last time you saw her. Your wife, I mean."

"Three years ago... when she died."

"She died?"

"Yes, but I'm not crazy! At least I don't think I am... it does sound a little crazy though doesn't it? Why are you here?"

Without thinking, without even realizing what was happening, Sakura replied, "I'm looking for my mama. I mean, my mother."

She had to force herself not to cover her mouth with her hands. She was scared now, but she could stay calm until James was out of sight. It wasn't everyday that she spoke in a voice that wasn't hers, about things that weren't true.

Her heart was pounding, and she was sure her face was flushed, but for the sake of the mission she forced herself to keep her composure. She's think about what happened later, "Yeah... My mother."

"Well, I hope you find her." James replied, smiling once more, seemingly unfazed by her voice changing. That is, if he even noticed. He seemed quite out of it, "The town's this way, right?"

"Yeah, just down the path, y-you can't miss it." Sakura stuttered, her hands shaking so violently she had to shove them in her pockets. She felt a presence there, in that cemetery, one that felt like it was invading the deepest parts of her soul. She needed to leave.

James nodded and turned, ready to leave when Sakura cut him off, again in an odd voice that wasn't hers, "But if I were you, I'd stay away. There are things in that town, dangerous things... it's not safe." This time she did throw her hands across her mouth, no longer caring if she scared James away.

But he was unfazed once again, "Thanks for the warning, but I don't really care if it's dangerous or not. I'm going to town either way." This time he started to walk away as he turned, not giving her a chance to stop him again, "Stay safe."

"You too." Sakura whispered back, her hands drifting down from her mouth, cradling them at her chest. She spoke in her voice this time, and for what she hoped was not the last.

The presence that was surrounding her dissipated, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tenten running into the cemetery.

"Sakura, what the hell!?" Tenten was furious, "You would just leave me behind?"

"I'm sorry, I thought I saw one of the people we were looking for, and I got ahead of myself." Sakura smiled shamefully, "It won't happen again."

"It better not." Tenten snapped back, but not without a smile, "Let's get going, alright? I'd like to get out of this town as soon as possible."

With that, they followed the same path James had taken into town. They walked in near silence, with bits of friendly conversation every now and then breaking through the crunching of the dirt and twigs beneath their feet. Sakura never once mentioned her meeting with James, nor the fact that she felt as if something was following them, following her.

Little did she know, that would be the last time she would speak in her own voice her own words for a very long time.

TBC


End file.
